markdown-changelog-from-git

A tool that automatically transforms your git history into beautifully formatted, customer-focused changelogs that highlight the real value of your product updates. Powered by Google's Gemini 2.0 Flash AI.

Features

• Extract commit history from a git repository
• Analyze file changes, additions, and deletions for better context
• Generate customer-focused changelogs that emphasize user benefits
• Create marketing-friendly release notes with emojis and engaging categories
• Highlight user-facing features and measurable improvements
• Transform technical commits into value-focused updates
• Filter commits by date range and limit processing

Installation

bun install

Usage

Option 1: Using the Executable

After building with bun run build, you can run the executable directly:

GEMINI_API_KEY=your_api_key [OPTIONS] ./changelog-gen

Option 2: Using Bun

Run the tool with the following environment variables:

GEMINI_API_KEY=your_api_key [OPTIONS] bun run index.ts

Required Environment Variables

• GEMINI_API_KEY: Your Google Gemini API key (required)

Optional Environment Variables

• START_DATE: Filter commits starting from this date (format: YYYY-MM-DD)
• END_DATE: Filter commits until this date (format: YYYY-MM-DD)
• OUTPUT_DIR: Directory to save generated changelogs (default: "./changelogs")
• MAX_COMMITS: Maximum number of commits to process

Example

GEMINI_API_KEY=your_api_key START_DATE=2023-01-01 END_DATE=2023-12-31 OUTPUT_DIR=./docs/changelogs MAX_COMMITS=100 ./changelog-gen

Using the Convenience Script

For the team-journal repository, you can use the provided script:

1. Edit run-on-team-journal.sh to add your Gemini API key
2. Make the script executable: chmod +x run-on-team-journal.sh
3. Run it: ./run-on-team-journal.sh

This will generate changelogs for the team-journal repository in ~/Documents/Web/team-journal/changelogs/.

How it Works

1. The tool extracts detailed commit information using git commands
2. For each commit, it collects:
   • Basic commit data (hash, author, date, message)
   • List of all changed files
   • Statistics on additions and deletions
3. This comprehensive data is sent to Google's Gemini 1.5 Flash model
4. The AI transforms technical details into customer benefits:
   • Analyzes file paths to identify user-facing features
   • Converts technical changes into benefit statements
   • Groups updates into engaging categories with emoji icons
   • Uses marketing-friendly language to highlight improvements
   • Maintains focus on user value, not technical implementation
5. The polished, customer-ready changelog is saved as a Markdown file

Development

This project was created using bun init in bun v1.2.4. Bun is a fast all-in-one JavaScript runtime.