feat: enhance development setup with automatic Git hooks for changelog generation

Author: dataGriff

.githooks/pre-commit

@@ -24,7 +24,14 @@ echo "Updating changelog with new entries..."
 if [ -f "CHANGELOG.md" ]; then
     # Changelog exists, only add new unreleased entries
     echo "Existing changelog found. Adding new unreleased entries..."
-    git-cliff --unreleased --prepend CHANGELOG.md
+    # Generate unreleased entries and prepend to existing changelog
+    git-cliff --unreleased --output /tmp/new_entries.md
+    if [ -s /tmp/new_entries.md ]; then
+        # If there are new entries, prepend them to existing changelog
+        cat /tmp/new_entries.md CHANGELOG.md > /tmp/updated_changelog.md
+        mv /tmp/updated_changelog.md CHANGELOG.md
+        rm -f /tmp/new_entries.md
+    fi
 else
     # No changelog exists, create it from scratch
     echo "No existing changelog found. Creating new changelog..."

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -4,6 +4,70 @@
 
 ### 🚀 Features
 
+- Add initial documentation and setup files for codebase interface _(2025-10-15)_
+- Enhance documentation across multiple files for clarity and usability _(2025-10-15)_
+- Enhance MkDocs setup and documentation, add .gitignore for project files _(2025-10-15)_
+- Expand documentation in index.md with principles and benefits for users and contributors _(2025-10-15)_
+- Add GitHub Actions workflow for deploying MkDocs to GitHub Pages _(2025-10-15)_
+- Add benefits documentation for users and contributors, and update navigation _(2025-10-15)_
+- Restructure documentation navigation and add tooling section _(2025-10-15)_
+- Enhance README with Codebase Interface Principles badges and description _(2025-10-15)_
+- Update tooling documentation and add new user and interface sections _(2025-10-15)_
+- Add audience documentation for Users, AI Agents, Build Agents, Contributors, and Operators _(2025-10-15)_
+- Add initial changelog documentation for primary and secondary audiences _(2025-10-15)_
+- Update documentation structure and add language interface section _(2025-10-15)_
+- Rename Home section to Welcome in documentation _(2025-10-15)_
+- Enhance documentation structure with principles, examples, and audience sections _(2025-10-15)_
+- Restructure documentation by moving Welcome content to README and removing index file _(2025-10-16)_
+- Restore pull request template with structured guidelines _(2025-10-16)_
+- Add CHANGELOG and enhance README with documentation navigation _(2025-10-16)_
+- Add commit message validation script for Conventional Commits _(2025-10-16)_
+- Enhance changelog generation and update Taskfile with new tasks _(2025-10-16)_
+- Enhance changelog generation and update Taskfile with new hooks and tasks _(2025-10-16)_
+- Enhance changelog generation and update Taskfile with new hooks _(2025-10-16)_
+- Update changelog generation and add pre-commit hook for automatic updates _(2025-10-16)_
+- Add interface for contributors to understand outstanding tasks via TODO.md _(2025-10-16)_
+
+### 🐛 Bug Fixes
+
+- Correct spelling error in principles section of index.md _(2025-10-15)_
+- Update upload-pages-artifact action to v3 in deploy-docs.yml _(2025-10-15)_
+- Clarify instructions for supporting codebase principles in documentation _(2025-10-15)_
+- Reorder links in README for better clarity and navigation _(2025-10-16)_
+
+### 💼 Other
+
+- Initial commit _(2025-10-15)_
+- Add initial documentation files and pull request template _(2025-10-15)_
+- Added pre-commit hook _(2025-10-15)_
+- Update tooling.md _(2025-10-16)_
+- Merge branch 'main' of https://github.com/codebase-interface/codebaseinterface _(2025-10-16)_
+
+### 🚜 Refactor
+
+- Streamline GitHub Actions workflow for MkDocs deployment _(2025-10-15)_
+
+### 📚 Documentation
+
+- Ensured link opens new tab _(2025-10-15)_
+- Updated links to open in new tab and corrected docs github url _(2025-10-15)_
+- Updated links open new tab _(2025-10-15)_
+- Correcting link syntax _(2025-10-15)_
+- Fixing link _(2025-10-15)_
+
+### ⚙️ Miscellaneous Tasks
+
+- Add initial .editorconfig, .gitattributes, and .gitmessage files for consistent coding styles and commit message guidelines _(2025-10-15)_
+- Add mention of technical agnostic helper files in AGENTS.md _(2025-10-15)_
+- Update AGENTS.md to include guidelines for conventional commits and pull request templates _(2025-10-15)_
+- Reorganize Codebase Interfaces section in AGENTS.md for improved clarity _(2025-10-15)_
+<!-- generated by git-cliff -->
+# Changelog
+
+## [unreleased]
+
+### 🚀 Features
+
 - Add initial documentation and setup files for codebase interface _(2025-10-15)_
 - Enhance documentation across multiple files for clarity and usability _(2025-10-15)_
 - Enhance MkDocs setup and documentation, add .gitignore for project files _(2025-10-15)_

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -22,8 +22,26 @@ task --version
 task --list
 ```
 
-## Docs
+## Development Setup
+
+Run the setup task to configure your development environment:
 
 ```bash
-pip install mkdocs mkdocs-material mkdocs-git-revision-date-localized-plugin
+task setup
 ```
+
+This will:
+
+- Install MkDocs and required plugins
+- Configure Git hooks for automatic changelog generation
+- Set up pre-commit hooks that follow conventional commits
+
+## Important: Git Hooks
+
+This project uses Git hooks to automatically generate changelog entries from conventional commits. The setup task above configures this automatically, but if you need to set it up manually:
+
+```bash
+task setup:hooks
+```
+
+Make sure to follow [Conventional Commits](https://conventionalcommits.org) specification in your commit messages for proper changelog generation.

README.md

@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ The codebase interface is a set of principles that aim to promote the ease of us
 - [Codebase Interface](#codebase-interface)
   - [Badges](#badges)
   - [Docs Navigation](#docs-navigation)
+  - [Quick Start for Contributors](#quick-start-for-contributors)
 
 ## Badges
 
@@ -26,3 +27,23 @@ The codebase interface is a set of principles that aim to promote the ease of us
 | [CHANGELOG](CHANGELOG.md) | A log of all notable changes made to this service. |
 | [TODO](TODO.md) | Outstanding tasks and ideas for this service. |
 | [AGENTS](AGENTS.md) | AI agent based documentation to support with AI assisted tasks. |
+
+## Quick Start for Contributors
+
+To set up the development environment and enable automatic changelog generation:
+
+```bash
+# Install dependencies and configure hooks
+task setup
+
+# Or manually configure hooks
+task setup:hooks
+```
+
+This will:
+
+- Install required dependencies (MkDocs, plugins)
+- Configure Git to use project hooks for automatic changelog generation
+- Enable pre-commit hook that updates CHANGELOG.md automatically
+
+**Note**: The pre-commit hook automatically generates changelog entries from your conventional commits, so make sure to follow the [Conventional Commits](https://conventionalcommits.org) specification.

Taskfile.yml

@@ -18,8 +18,16 @@ tasks:
       - pip install mkdocs-material
       - pip install mkdocs-git-revision-date-localized-plugin
       - pip install pymdown-extensions
+      - task: setup:hooks
     silent: true
 
+  setup:hooks:
+    desc: Configure Git to use project hooks directory
+    cmds:
+      - git config core.hooksPath .githooks
+      - chmod +x .githooks/pre-commit
+      - echo "Git hooks configured! Pre-commit hook is now active for changelog generation."
+
   build:
     desc: Build the MkDocs site
     cmds: