pychangelog2

Generate a simple changelog from Git history.

pychangelog2 prints commit lines in chronological order and is designed for release notes workflows where commit subjects are already clean and meaningful.

Features

• Generates changelog entries from a local Git repository path.
• Defaults to commits from the latest tag to HEAD.
• Supports explicit --start-tag and --end-tag ranges.
• Excludes merge commits created by GitHub PR merges and branch merges.

Installation

Install from PyPI:

python3 -m pip install --user -U pychangelog2

Install from source:

git clone https://github.com/doronz88/pychangelog2.git
cd pychangelog2
python3 -m pip install -e .

Usage

pychangelog2 [OPTIONS] PATH

• PATH: path to a local Git repository.
• --start-tag TEXT: start changelog after this tag.
• --end-tag TEXT: end changelog at this tag (defaults to HEAD).

Behavior

• If --start-tag is omitted, the tool starts from the most recently authored tag in the repository.
• If --end-tag is provided, --start-tag is required.
• If a provided tag does not exist, the command exits with an error.
• Output format is:

* <full-commit-sha> <first-line-of-commit-message>

Examples

Generate changelog from the latest tag to HEAD:

pychangelog2 /path/to/repo

Generate changelog from a specific tag to HEAD:

pychangelog2 /path/to/repo --start-tag v1.2.0

Generate changelog between two tags:

pychangelog2 /path/to/repo --start-tag v1.2.0 --end-tag v1.4.0