automated-changelog

LLM-powered automated changelog generation for Git repositories.

Overview

automated-changelog is a Python CLI tool that automatically generates human-readable changelogs by analyzing your Git history and using LLMs to create concise, meaningful summaries. It filters out noise to focus on significant changes.

Installation

pip install automated-changelog

Quick Start

1. Set up LLM credentials (create .env file in your repo):

   LITELLM_PROXY_API_BASE=https://your-litellm-proxy.example.com
   LITELLM_PROXY_API_KEY=sk-your-key-here
   

2. Initialize configuration (in your Git repo):

   automated-changelog init
   

   This creates .changelog_config.yaml with default settings.

3. Generate your changelog:

   # Preview without writing
   automated-changelog generate --dry-run
   
   # Generate and write to CHANGELOG.md
   automated-changelog generate
   
   # Skip LLM summarization (just list commits)
   automated-changelog generate --skip-llm
   

CLI Commands

automated-changelog init [--config PATH]

Creates a .changelog_config.yaml configuration file in your repository with sensible defaults for commit filtering and LLM summarization.

Example:

cd /path/to/your/repo
automated-changelog init

automated-changelog generate [OPTIONS]

Generates changelog entries from Git history since the last run.

Options:

• --dry-run - Preview the changelog without writing to file
• --skip-llm - Skip LLM summarization and only list commits
• --config PATH - Use custom config file (default: .changelog_config.yaml)
• --from-date DATE - Start date for commits (YYYY-MM-DD) for historical generation
• --to-date DATE - End date for commits (YYYY-MM-DD) for historical generation

Examples:

# Preview before generating
automated-changelog generate --dry-run

# Generate with LLM summaries
automated-changelog generate

# Just list commits without LLM
automated-changelog generate --skip-llm

# Generate historical changelog for specific date range
automated-changelog generate --from-date 2024-01-01 --to-date 2024-01-07

# Generate changelog for all commits since a date
automated-changelog generate --from-date 2024-01-01

# Generate changelog for all commits until a date
automated-changelog generate --to-date 2024-12-31

Environment Variables

• LITELLM_PROXY_API_BASE - Your LiteLLM proxy URL
• LITELLM_PROXY_API_KEY - Your LiteLLM API key
• SSL_VERIFY - Set to false to disable SSL verification (for internal proxies)

Example:

SSL_VERIFY=false automated-changelog generate --dry-run

Core Functionality

1. Commit Analysis: Processes git log history, focusing on commits since the last time the tool was run (tracked via metadata within the CHANGELOG.md).
2. Intelligent Filtering: Filters out minor commits (e.g., chores, docs, tests, typos) based on customizable rules (commit message prefixes, keywords, file paths) defined in the configuration.
3. LLM-Powered Summarization: Generates concise, bulleted summaries of significant changes by analyzing commit messages.
4. Markdown Output: Formats the summaries and commit lists into a well-structured Markdown section.
5. Incremental Updates: Reads the existing changelog file (e.g., CHANGELOG.md) and automatically prepends the newly generated section, maintaining a running history.
6. Historical Generation: Generate changelogs for specific date ranges using --from-date and --to-date flags. Perfect for backfilling weekly or monthly changelog entries for repositories with extensive history.

How it Works:

• Configuration: Uses a .changelog_config.yaml file (checked into your repo) to define filtering rules, the output changelog file path, and optionally customize LLM prompts. An init command helps generate this file.
• Execution: Run the generate command from within your repository. It uses the Git CLI and interacts with a configured LLM to produce the summaries.
• State Management: Stores the hash of the last processed commit within a comment or metadata block inside the CHANGELOG.md file. This ensures the tool only includes new changes in subsequent runs without requiring a separate state file.

What Gets Summarized

Important: The tool analyzes commit messages only, not code diffs or file changes.

For each commit since the last run, the tool extracts:

• Commit hash (full and short)
• Author name
• Commit date
• Commit subject (the first line of the commit message)

LLM Context

The LLM receives filtered commit messages in this format:

- abc1234 Add user authentication (John Doe, 2025-11-05 14:30)
- def5678 Fix login redirect bug (Jane Smith, 2025-11-04 10:15)
- ghi9012 Update password validation (John Doe, 2025-11-03 09:45)

The LLM does not see:

• Actual code changes or diffs
• File paths or file lists
• Commit bodies (only the subject line)

This design keeps API costs low and focuses on what developers already wrote in their commit messages.

How LLM Summarization Works

1. Filter commits based on rules in .changelog_config.yaml:

   • Ignore commits with certain prefixes (chore:, docs:, test:, etc.)
   • Ignore commits with certain keywords (typo, cleanup, etc.)

2. Send filtered commits to LLM with:

   • List of commit messages (hash, subject, author, date)
   • Custom prompt from config (e.g., "Summarize in 2-4 bullet points")

3. LLM generates a concise summary focusing on features, fixes, and breaking changes

Output Format

The final changelog entry includes:

• Summary - LLM-generated bullet points highlighting significant changes
• All commits (collapsible) - Full commit list for reference

Example:

## [2025-11-05]

### Summary

- Added OAuth2 authentication support with Google and GitHub providers
- Implemented password reset functionality via email
- Fixed session timeout bug causing unexpected logouts

### Changes (5 commits)

<details>
<summary>All commits</summary>

- abc1234 Add OAuth2 authentication (John Doe, 2025-11-05 14:30)
- def5678 Implement password reset (Jane Smith, 2025-11-04 10:15)
- ghi9012 Fix session timeout bug (John Doe, 2025-11-03 09:45)
...
</details>

Goal:

To save developer time and improve project visibility by automating the creation of consistent, informative, and easy-to-read changelogs.