changepacks 📦

A unified version management and changelog tool for multi-language monorepos.

Overview

changepacks is a Rust-powered CLI tool that brings consistent version management and changelog generation to polyglot projects. Inspired by changesets, it extends beyond JavaScript to natively support Node.js, Python, Rust, Dart, Java, and C# ecosystems with a single, fast, and reliable tool.

Why changepacks?

• 🌍 True Multi-Language Support - Manage versions across Node.js, Python, Rust, Dart, Java, and C# with unified workflow
• 🚀 Rust Performance - Fast, parallel operations with single binary distribution
• 🔗 Smart Dependencies - Automatic dependency resolution with topological sorting for publishing
• 💾 Format Preservation - Respects language conventions (JSON indentation, TOML formatting, YAML structure)
• 🌳 Git-Native - Uses git history for intelligent change detection
• 🎯 Developer-Friendly - Interactive CLI with colored output, tree views, and clear error messages

Recent Improvements

• 🔗 Workspace Dependency Updates - Automatically updates workspace:* dependencies in package.json when referenced packages are updated
• ⚙️ Update On Rules - Configure updateOn in config to automatically trigger updates for dependent packages (e.g., bridge packages)
• ✨ Enhanced Readability - Patch lists now display with newlines instead of commas for better visibility
• 📦 Dependency Sorting - Topological sort ensures packages publish in correct order
• 🎨 Improved Output - Tree view with colorized status and dependency visualization
• 🔧 Format Preservation - Maintains your file formatting (indentation, newlines) across all updates

Features

• 🚀 Multi-language Support - Native support for Node.js, Python, Rust, Dart, Java, and C# with workspace detection
• 📝 Changepack Logs - Track version updates with timestamped logs and detailed notes
• 🔄 Automated Updates - Smart version bumping with workspace dependency updates
• 🔗 Dependency Resolution - Topological sorting ensures dependencies publish before dependents
• ⚡ Fast CLI - Async Rust implementation with parallel operations
• 🎯 Project Detection - Automatic discovery of packages and workspaces via git
• 📊 Status & Visualization - Tree view of dependencies with change markers
• 💾 Format Preservation - Maintains indentation, newlines, and file formatting
• 🧪 Testing Support - Dry-run mode for updates and publishing
• 🔧 Configurable - Custom publish commands, ignore patterns, and base branch

Supported Languages & Package Managers

Note: Java/Gradle projects require the Gradle wrapper (gradlew) for version detection. The wrapper is used to resolve project properties dynamically.

Installation

Choose your preferred package manager:

Windows

winget install Changepacks.Changepacks

Rust (Cargo)

cargo install changepacks

Python

# pip
pip install changepacks

# uv (recommended)
uv add changepacks
uvx changepacks

Node.js

# npm
npm install @changepacks/cli
npx @changepacks/cli

# pnpm
pnpm install @changepacks/cli
pnpm dlx @changepacks/cli

# yarn
yarn install @changepacks/cli

# bun
bun install @changepacks/cli
bunx @changepacks/cli

Requirements

• Git repository (for project detection)
• Rust 1.97+ (for building from source)

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/changepacks/changepacks.git
cd changepacks
cargo build --release

The binary will be available at target/release/changepacks (or target/release/changepacks.exe on Windows).

Usage

Quick Start

1. Initialize changepacks in your repository:

changepacks init

2. Create a changepack when you make changes:

changepacks

This opens an interactive session to select changed projects and write release notes.

3. Update versions from changepack logs:

changepacks update

4. Publish packages in dependency order:

changepacks publish

Typical Workflow

# 1. Check which projects have changed
changepacks check --tree

# 2. Create a changepack log for your changes
changepacks
# → Select projects (Major/Minor/Patch)
# → Write changelog notes

# 3. Preview version updates
changepacks update --dry-run

# 4. Apply version updates
changepacks update

# 5. Test publishing
changepacks publish --dry-run

# 6. Publish to registries
changepacks publish

Check Project Status

View all projects with change detection:

changepacks check              # List all projects
changepacks check --tree       # Show dependency tree
changepacks check --filter workspace  # Only workspaces
changepacks check --filter package    # Only packages
changepacks check --remote     # Compare with remote branch

Update Versions

Apply version bumps from changepack logs:

changepacks update              # Interactive confirmation
changepacks update --dry-run    # Preview without applying
changepacks update --yes        # Skip confirmation

Publish Packages

Publish packages to their respective registries:

changepacks publish

Options:

changepacks publish --dry-run           # Verify release flow using each language's built-in dry-run command (e.g., npm publish --dry-run, cargo publish --dry-run)
changepacks publish --yes               # Skip confirmation prompts
changepacks publish --format json       # Output results in JSON format
changepacks publish --remote            # Use remote branch for change detection

The publish command will:

1. Discover all projects in your workspace
2. Show which projects will be published
3. Execute the publish command for each project (using language-specific defaults or custom commands from config)

Default publish commands by language:

• Node.js: npm publish
• Python: uv publish
• Rust: cargo publish
• Dart: dart pub publish
• Java: ./gradlew publish
• C#: dotnet pack -c Release && dotnet nuget push

Check Config

View the loaded changepacks config (from .changepacks/config.json):

changepacks config

This prints the merged and defaulted configuration, for example:

{
  "ignore": [
    "**/*",
    "!crates/changepacks/Cargo.toml",
    "!bridge/node/package.json",
    "!bridge/python/pyproject.toml"
  ],
  "baseBranch": "main",
  "latestPackage": "crates/changepacks/Cargo.toml",
  "publish": {
    "node": "npm publish",
    "python": "uv publish",
    "rust": "cargo publish",
    "dart": "dart pub publish",
    "bridge/node/package.json": "npm publish --access public"
  },
  "updateOn": {
    "crates/changepacks/Cargo.toml": ["bridge/node/package.json", "bridge/python/pyproject.toml"]
  }
}

You can edit .changepacks/config.json to customize:

• Files/projects to ignore (ignore) using glob patterns (default: empty).
• The base branch to compare against for changes (baseBranch, default: "main").
• The default main package for versioning (latestPackage, optional).
• Custom publish commands (publish):
  • Set language-specific commands using language keys: "node", "python", "rust", "dart", "java", "csharp".
  • Set project-specific commands using relative paths (e.g., "bridge/node/package.json").
  • If not specified, default commands are used (see Publish Packages section).
• Custom dry-run publish commands (publishDryRun):
  • Overrides the dry-run command used by changepacks publish --dry-run.
  • Same keying rules as publish (language key or relative project path).
  • If not specified, each language uses its built-in dry-run command (e.g., npm publish --dry-run, uv publish --dry-run, cargo publish --dry-run, dart pub publish --dry-run; Java runs ./gradlew publishToMavenLocal against an isolated temporary Maven local repository that is removed afterward; C# runs a managed dotnet pack + push to a temporary local feed).
  • A custom publish command does not change the dry-run command — set publishDryRun to override what changepacks publish --dry-run executes.
• Dependency rules for forced updates (updateOn):
  • Key: glob pattern for trigger packages (e.g., "crates/*/Cargo.toml").
  • Value: list of package file paths that must be updated when trigger matches.
  • When a package matching the trigger pattern is updated, all dependent packages will also be marked for update.
  • Useful for bridge packages that wrap core libraries (e.g., when core Rust crate updates, automatically update Node.js and Python bindings).

If the config file is missing or empty, sensible defaults are used.

Default Command

Running changepacks without arguments starts an interactive session to select projects and create a changepack log.

Project Structure

changepacks/
├── crates/
│   ├── cli/          # CLI interface and commands
│   ├── core/         # Core types and traits
│   ├── node/         # Node.js project support
│   ├── python/       # Python project support
│   ├── rust/         # Rust project support
│   ├── dart/         # Dart project support
│   ├── java/         # Java/Gradle project support
│   ├── csharp/       # C#/.NET project support
│   └── utils/        # Utility functions
├── examples/         # Example projects for testing
├── Cargo.toml        # Workspace configuration
└── README.md

How It Works

1. Project Detection: Walks git tree to discover package.json, Cargo.toml, pyproject.toml, pubspec.yaml, build.gradle.kts, build.gradle, and *.csproj files
2. Change Tracking: Uses git diff to detect changed files, marking projects with modifications
3. Changepack Logs: Stores version bump intentions in .changepacks/changepack_log_*.json with notes and timestamps
4. Version Updates: Reads changepack logs, calculates new versions (semver), updates files while preserving formatting
5. Dependency Resolution: Topologically sorts projects by dependencies for correct publish order
6. Publishing: Executes language-specific or custom publish commands in dependency order

Changepack Log Format

{
  "changes": {
    "packages/foo/package.json": "Minor",
    "crates/bar/Cargo.toml": "Patch"
  },
  "note": "Add new feature X and fix bug Y",
  "date": "2025-12-19T10:27:00.000Z"
}

Development

Build Workspace

cargo build

Run Tests

cargo test

Lint Check

cargo clippy

Run Examples

Test with example projects:

cd examples/node/common
changepacks check

Architecture

The project follows a trait-based, modular architecture:

• Core (crates/core) - Defines common traits (Package, Workspace, ProjectFinder) and types
• Language Crates (crates/{node,python,rust,dart,java,csharp}) - Implement language-specific project detection and version management
• CLI (crates/cli) - Command-line interface with clap, colored output, and interactive prompts
• Utils (crates/utils) - Shared utilities: git operations, version calculation, dependency sorting, config management
• Bridges (bridge/{node,python}) - N-API and PyO3 bindings for package manager distribution

Key Design Patterns

• Async-First: All I/O operations use tokio for parallel execution
• Format Preservation: Language-specific parsers (toml_edit, yamlpatch, serde_json) maintain file formatting
• Git-Native: Uses gix library for change detection and repository operations
• Topological Sorting: Kahn's algorithm ensures correct publish order based on dependencies

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

Sponsors

We're grateful to our sponsors for supporting changepacks development! If you're interested in sponsoring this project, please get in touch.

Used By

The following open-source projects and companies are using changepacks:

Devup UI

Braillify

Devfive

If you're using changepacks in your project, we'd love to feature you here! Please open a Pull Request to add your project or company.

License

This project is distributed under the Apache License 2.0. See the LICENSE file for more details.

Roadmap

• Node.js package management support
• Python package management support
• Rust package management support
• Dart package management support
• Java/Gradle package management support
• C#/.NET package management support
• CI/CD integration support (JSON output, dry-run mode)
• Dependency-aware publishing with topological sorting
• Format preservation across all languages
• Interactive CLI with tree view and colored output
• Cross-platform distribution (Windows, macOS, Linux)
• N-API and PyO3 bindings for npm/PyPI
• Plugin system for additional languages
• CHANGELOG.md generation from changepack logs
• GitHub Actions integration
• Pre-release version support

Support

If you encounter any issues or have feature requests, please let us know on the Issues page.

Inspirations

• changesets - Version management for JavaScript projects