check-changelog

The project's aims are:

• validate CHANGELOG.md. Check that it conforms to Keep A Changelog and Common Changelog styles.
• ensure git tags are documented in CHANGELOG.md
• block pushing tags without changelog. See git pre-push section

The supported changelog style is Keep A Changelog style with these additions:

• allow changelog notes

  # Changelog
  Changelog notes
  
  ## [Unreleased]
  

• allow release notes (Common Changelog addition)

  ## [1.0.0] - 2023-05-05
  Release notes
  
  ### Added
   - add feature ...
  

• allow custom footer to separate tech stuff from changelog content. Useful for legal notes, text used by other scripts, HTML comments, etc

  -----
  Linter will ignore this section.
  <!--- message for some script -->
  [my site]: http://mysite.com
  

Installation

pip install check-changelog

Usage

From command line

Check changelog style

check-changelog --check-style=yes

Ensure git tags are documented in a changelog

check-changelog --check-tags=history

Add Unreleased section to a changelog, create a new changelog if needed

check-changelog --release=new

Create release 3.3.3 from current Unreleased section

check-changelog --release="3.3.3"

--- CHANGELOG.md
+++ CHANGELOG.md
@@ -2,6 +2,8 @@

 ## [Unreleased]

+## [3.3.3] - 2023-07-17
+
 ### Changed

  - some change
@@ -20,6 +22,7 @@
 ## [0.1.0] - 2023-07-11

 [Unreleased]: https://github.com/aanatoly/check-changelog
+[3.3.3]: https://github.com/aanatoly/check-changelog/releases/tag/3.3.3
 [0.3.0]: https://github.com/aanatoly/check-changelog/releases/tag/0.3.0
 [0.2.1]: https://github.com/aanatoly/check-changelog/releases/tag/0.2.1

pre-commit hook

As a pre-commit hook. Add this section to your .pre-commit-config.yaml

- repo: https://github.com/aanatoly/check-changelog
  rev: '0.4.1'
  hooks:
    - id: check-changelog

git pre-push hook

As a git pre-push hook, check-changelog can block git from pushing tags without changelog. To install it that way, run the following commmands

# backup existing hook
mv .git/hooks/pre-push  .git/hooks/pre-push.bak
# install new hook
check-changelog --install-hook

and let's test it

git tag -a -m "abc.7.7" "abc.7.7"
git tag -a -m "abc.7.8" "abc.7.8"
git push --tags --dry-run

# check-changelog :: INFO  :: file CHANGELOG.md: starting
# check-changelog :: INFO  :: task check tags documentation: starting
# check-changelog :: INFO  :: scan 2 tags from 'hook' source
# check-changelog :: ERROR :: tag 'abc.7.7' not found
# check-changelog :: ERROR :: tag 'abc.7.8' not found
# check-changelog :: ERROR :: task check tags documentation: fail
# check-changelog :: ERROR :: file CHANGELOG.md: fail

git tag -d "abc.7.7"
git tag -d "abc.7.8"

Alternatives

Check python-kacl. It is a feature-rich tool capable of linting, fixing errors, and automating Changelog maintenance.

Development

See development doc