generate_changelog

README

Changelog Generator

A high-performance changelog generator for Git repositories that automatically creates comprehensive, well-formatted changelogs from your git history and GitHub pull requests.

Features

• One-pass git history walking: Efficiently processes entire repository history in a single pass
• Automatic PR detection: Extracts pull request information from merge commits
• GitHub API integration: Fetches detailed PR information including commits, authors, and descriptions
• Smart caching: SQLite-based caching for instant incremental updates
• Unreleased changes: Tracks all commits since the last release
• Concurrent processing: Parallel GitHub API calls for improved performance
• Flexible output: Generate complete changelogs or target specific versions
• GraphQL optimization: Ultra-fast PR fetching using GitHub GraphQL API (~5-10 calls vs 1000s)
• Intelligent sync: Automatically syncs new PRs every 24 hours or when missing PRs are detected
• AI-powered summaries: Optional Fabric integration for enhanced changelog summaries
• Advanced caching: Content-based change detection for AI summaries with hash comparison
• Author type detection: Distinguishes between users, bots, and organizations
• Lightning-fast incremental updates: SHA→PR mapping for instant git operations

Installation

go install github.com/danielmiessler/fabric/cmd/generate_changelog@latest

Usage

Basic usage (generate complete changelog)

generate_changelog

Save to file

generate_changelog -o CHANGELOG.md

Generate for specific version

generate_changelog -v v1.4.244

Limit to recent versions

generate_changelog -l 10

Using GitHub token for private repos or higher rate limits

export GITHUB_TOKEN=your_token_here
generate_changelog

# Or pass directly
generate_changelog --token your_token_here

AI-enhanced summaries

# Enable AI summaries using Fabric
generate_changelog --ai-summarize

# Use custom model for AI summaries
FABRIC_CHANGELOG_SUMMARIZE_MODEL=claude-opus-4 generate_changelog --ai-summarize

Cache management

# Rebuild cache from scratch
generate_changelog --rebuild-cache

# Force a full PR sync from GitHub
generate_changelog --force-pr-sync

# Disable cache usage
generate_changelog --no-cache

# Use custom cache location
generate_changelog --cache /path/to/cache.db

Command Line Options

Flag	Short	Description	Default
--repo	-r	Repository path	. (current directory)
--output	-o	Output file	stdout
--limit	-l	Limit number of versions	0 (all)
--version	-v	Generate for specific version
--save-data		Save version data to JSON	false
--cache		Cache database file	./cmd/generate_changelog/changelog.db
--no-cache		Disable cache usage	false
--rebuild-cache		Rebuild cache from scratch	false
--force-pr-sync		Force a full PR sync from GitHub	false
--token		GitHub API token	$GITHUB_TOKEN
--ai-summarize		Generate AI-enhanced summaries using Fabric	false
--release		Update GitHub release description with AI summary for version

Output Format

The generated changelog follows this structure:

# Changelog

## Unreleased

### PR [#1601](url) by [author](profile): PR Title
- Change description 1
- Change description 2

### Direct commits
- Direct commit message 1
- Direct commit message 2

## v1.4.244 (2025-07-09)

### PR [#1598](url) by [author](profile): PR Title
- Change description
...

How It Works

1. Git History Walking: The tool walks through your git history from newest to oldest commits
2. Version Detection: Identifies version bump commits (pattern: "Update version to vX.Y.Z")
3. PR Extraction: Detects merge commits and extracts PR numbers
4. GitHub API Calls: Fetches detailed PR information in parallel batches
5. Change Extraction: Extracts changes from PR commit messages or PR body
6. Formatting: Generates clean, organized markdown output

Performance

• Native Go libraries: Uses go-git and go-github for maximum performance
• Concurrent API calls: Processes up to 10 GitHub API requests in parallel
• Smart caching: SQLite cache eliminates redundant API calls
• Incremental updates: Only processes new commits on subsequent runs
• GraphQL optimization: Uses GitHub GraphQL API to fetch all PR data in ~5-10 calls
• AI-powered summaries: Optional Fabric integration with intelligent caching
• Content-based change detection: AI summaries only regenerated when content changes
• Lightning-fast git operations: SHA→PR mapping stored in database for instant lookups

Major Optimization: GraphQL + Advanced Caching

The tool has been optimized to drastically reduce GitHub API calls and improve performance:

Previous approach: Individual API calls for each PR (2 API calls per PR)

• For a repo with 500 PRs: 1,000 API calls

Current approach: GraphQL batch fetching with intelligent caching

• For a repo with 500 PRs: ~5-10 GraphQL calls (initial fetch) + 0 calls (subsequent runs with cache)
• 99%+ reduction in API calls after initial run!

The optimization includes:

1. GraphQL Batch Fetch: Uses GitHub's GraphQL API to fetch all merged PRs with commits in minimal calls
2. Smart Caching: Stores complete PR data, commits, and SHA mappings in SQLite
3. Incremental Sync: Only fetches PRs merged after the last sync timestamp
4. Automatic Refresh: PRs are synced every 24 hours or when missing PRs are detected
5. AI Summary Caching: Content-based change detection prevents unnecessary AI regeneration
6. Fallback Support: If GraphQL fails, falls back to REST API batch fetching
7. Lightning Git Operations: Pre-computed SHA→PR mappings for instant commit association

Requirements

• Go 1.24+ (for installation from source)
• Git repository
• GitHub token (optional, for private repos or higher rate limits)
• Fabric CLI (optional, for AI-enhanced summaries)

Authentication

The tool supports GitHub authentication via:

1. Environment variable: export GITHUB_TOKEN=your_token
2. Command line flag: --token your_token
3. .env file in the same directory as the binary

Environment File Support

Create a .env file next to the generate_changelog binary:

GITHUB_TOKEN=your_github_token_here
FABRIC_CHANGELOG_SUMMARIZE_MODEL=claude-sonnet-4-20250514

The tool automatically loads .env files for convenient configuration management.

Without authentication, the tool is limited to 60 GitHub API requests per hour.

Caching

The SQLite cache stores:

• Version information and commit associations
• Pull request details (title, body, commits, authors)
• Last processed commit SHA for incremental updates
• Last PR sync timestamp for intelligent refresh
• AI summaries with content-based change detection
• SHA→PR mappings for lightning-fast git operations

Cache benefits:

• Instant changelog regeneration
• Drastically reduced GitHub API usage (99%+ reduction after initial run)
• Offline changelog generation (after initial cache build)
• Automatic PR data refresh every 24 hours
• Batch database transactions for better performance
• Content-aware AI summary regeneration

AI-Enhanced Summaries

The tool can generate AI-powered summaries using Fabric for more polished, professional changelogs:

# Enable AI summarization
generate_changelog --ai-summarize

# Custom model (default: claude-sonnet-4-20250514)
FABRIC_CHANGELOG_SUMMARIZE_MODEL=claude-opus-4 generate_changelog --ai-summarize

AI Summary Features

• Content-based change detection: AI summaries are only regenerated when version content changes
• Intelligent caching: Preserves existing summaries and only processes changed versions
• Content hash comparison: Uses SHA256 hashing to detect when "Unreleased" content changes
• Automatic fallback: Falls back to raw content if AI processing fails
• Error detection: Identifies and handles AI processing errors gracefully
• Minimum content filtering: Skips AI processing for very brief content (< 256 characters)

AI Model Configuration

Set the model via environment variable:

export FABRIC_CHANGELOG_SUMMARIZE_MODEL=claude-opus-4
# or
export FABRIC_CHANGELOG_SUMMARIZE_MODEL=gpt-4

AI summaries are cached and only regenerated when:

• Version content changes (detected via hash comparison)
• No existing AI summary exists for the version
• Force rebuild is requested

Contributing

This tool is part of the Fabric project. Contributions are welcome!

License

The MIT License. Same as the Fabric project.