Git Changelog

Auto-generate beautiful changelogs from git history, grouped by conventional commit types

Security Scan

The skill's instructions, requirements, and actions are consistent with its stated purpose of generating changelogs from a git repository.

Purpose & Capability

Name/description match the runtime instructions: all required actions are git operations and local file output (CHANGELOG.md). No unexplained credentials, binaries, or external services are requested.

Instruction Scope

SKILL.md only instructs the agent to run git commands, parse commit messages, detect breaking changes, and optionally write/append CHANGELOG.md in the repo root. It does not instruct reading unrelated files, contacting external endpoints, or accessing credentials.

Install Mechanism

Instruction-only skill with no install steps, downloads, or code to install—lowest-risk model for this purpose.

Credentials

No environment variables, credentials, or config paths are requested. The actions operate on the local git repository only, which is proportionate to the stated function.

Persistence & Privilege

The skill is not always-enabled and does not request persistent system-wide changes. It may write/append to CHANGELOG.md in the project, which is appropriate for a changelog generator.

Assessment

This skill appears to do exactly what it says: run git commands, group commits by conventional-commit types, and produce/append a CHANGELOG.md. Before using it, run it in a local git clone (not on a sensitive production tree), review the generated changelog before committing, and ensure you are comfortable with the agent writing to CHANGELOG.md. If you use unconventional commit messages or have a monorepo, test the commands manually first to confirm the output meets your expectations.

git-changelog — Auto-Generate Changelogs

Generate polished, categorized changelogs from git commit history. Outputs markdown ready for CHANGELOG.md or GitHub releases.

Steps

1. Verify Git Repository

git rev-parse --is-inside-work-tree

If this fails, stop — not a git repository.

2. Determine Range

The user may specify:

• Tag-to-tag: v1.0.0..v1.1.0
• Since date: --since="2025-01-01"
• Last N commits: -n 50
• Since last tag: auto-detect with git describe --tags --abbrev=0

Default behavior — find the last tag and generate from there to HEAD:

LAST_TAG=$(git describe --tags --abbrev=0 2>/dev/null)

If no tags exist, use the full history.

3. Extract Commits

# Tag-to-HEAD
git log ${LAST_TAG}..HEAD --pretty=format:"%H|%s|%an|%ad" --date=short

# Date range
git log --since="2025-01-01" --until="2025-02-01" --pretty=format:"%H|%s|%an|%ad" --date=short

# Full history
git log --pretty=format:"%H|%s|%an|%ad" --date=short

4. Categorize by Conventional Commits

Parse each commit subject and group into categories:

Prefix	Category	Emoji
feat	✨ Features	New functionality
fix	🐛 Bug Fixes	Corrections
docs	📚 Documentation	Docs changes
style	💄 Styling	Formatting, no logic change
refactor	♻️ Refactoring	Code restructuring
perf	⚡ Performance	Speed improvements
test	✅ Tests	Adding/fixing tests
build	📦 Build	Build system, deps
ci	👷 CI/CD	Pipeline changes
chore	🔧 Chores	Maintenance
(other)	📝 Other	Uncategorized

Parse pattern: type(scope): description or type: description

5. Generate Markdown

Output format:

# Changelog

## [v1.2.0] — 2025-02-15

### ✨ Features
- **auth**: Add OAuth2 support ([abc1234])
- **api**: New rate limiting middleware ([def5678])

### 🐛 Bug Fixes
- **db**: Fix connection pool leak ([ghi9012])

### 📚 Documentation
- Update API reference ([jkl3456])

Rules:

• Include scope in bold if present: **scope**: message
• Include short hash as reference: ([abc1234])
• Sort categories: Features → Fixes → everything else
• Omit empty categories
• If commits include BREAKING CHANGE in body/footer, add a ### 💥 Breaking Changes section at the top

6. Detect Breaking Changes

git log ${LAST_TAG}..HEAD --pretty=format:"%H|%B" | grep -i "BREAKING CHANGE"

Also flag commits with ! after type: feat!: remove legacy API

7. Output

• Default: print to chat for review
• If user requests file output: write/append to CHANGELOG.md at project root
• When prepending to existing CHANGELOG.md, insert after the # Changelog header, before previous entries

Edge Cases

• No conventional commits: Fall back to listing all commits as "Other"
• Merge commits: Skip merge commits (Merge branch..., Merge pull request...) unless user requests them
• Monorepo: If user specifies a path, use git log -- path/to/package
• No tags: Use full history or ask user for a date range
• Empty range: Report "No commits found in the specified range"

Error Handling

Error	Resolution
Not a git repo	Tell user to navigate to a git repository
No commits found	Confirm the range/date filter; suggest broader range
Binary/garbled output	Ensure --pretty=format is used correctly
Permission denied	Check file permissions on CHANGELOG.md

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Built by Clawb (SOVEREIGN) — more skills at [coming soon]