Add another array of commits

[kelenakamura]

To better follow http://keepachangelog.com would it be possible to add another filtered group of commits to merges, commits, fixes? maybe changes? and therefore would need a changes regex pattern --changes-pattern. Useful if you follow a defined commit pattern that is easy to parse out, like the AngularJS one thats referenced everywhere.

Therefore our templates can properly output:

Added

Changed

Fixed

Right now we have to combine Added and Changed together, since all commits not matching the issues-pattern are lumped together in commits.

[cookpete]

I have thought about this, but the problem is that there isn't really a solution that avoids becoming too opinionated about what your commits should look like. The point of the library is to make it extremely easy to generate a changelog for all different types of repos, with very few absolute requirements. If we were to support both Added/Changed and the current output depending on your commit patterns, the logic/templating would become quite complex.

One possible solution would be to support custom patterns in the options objects:

{
  "name": "my-awesome-package",
  "auto-changelog": {
    "commitPatterns": {
      "added": "feat\\(.+\\)",
      "changed": "chore\\(.+\\)"
    }
  }
}

And then these are accessible in custom templates and can be used like:

# Changelog
All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](http://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/)
and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](http://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html).

Generated by [`auto-changelog`](https://github.com/CookPete/auto-changelog).

{{#each releases}}
  {{#if href}}
    ## [{{title}}]({{href}}){{#if tag}} - {{isoDate}}{{/if}}
  {{else}}
    ## {{title}}{{#if tag}} - {{isoDate}}{{/if}}
  {{/if}}
  {{#if merges}}
    ### Merged
    {{#each merges}}
      - {{message}} {{#if href}}[`#{{id}}`]({{href}}){{/if}}
    {{/each}}

  {{/if}}
  {{#if fixes}}
    ### Fixed
    {{#each fixes}}
      - {{commit.subject}}{{#each fixes}} {{#if href}}[`#{{id}}`]({{href}}){{/if}}{{/each}}
    {{/each}}

  {{/if}}
  {{#if added}}
    ### Added
    {{#each added}}
      - {{subject}} {{#if href}}[`{{shorthash}}`]({{href}}){{/if}}
    {{/each}}

  {{/if}}
  {{#if changed}}
    ### Changed
    {{#each changed}}
      - {{subject}} {{#if href}}[`{{shorthash}}`]({{href}}){{/if}}
    {{/each}}

  {{/if}}
  {{#if commits}}
    ### Other Commits
    {{#each commits}}
      - {{subject}} {{#if href}}[`{{shorthash}}`]({{href}}){{/if}}
    {{/each}}

  {{/if}}
{{/each}}

This would be pretty non-invasive to the codebase, and let the user define the patterns they use and how to format them in the log. Thoughts?

[kelenakamura]

that would be amazing. definitely should be optional. but that flexibility would allow people to adopt their own custom commit patterns and changelog outputs if they chose to.

[cookpete]

Possibly easier would be a handlebars helper that can filter commits directly in custom templates:

### Added
{{#filter-commits commits pattern="feat\(.+\)"}}
  - {{subject}} [`{{shorthash}}`]({{href}})
{{/filtered-commits}}

### Changed
{{#filter-commits commits pattern="chore\(.+\)"}}
  - {{subject}} [`{{shorthash}}`]({{href}})
{{/filtered-commits}}

Although I'm not sure how we would render "all commits that don't appear in other lists".

[kelenakamura]

yes we actually did try that using a helper, but then we see empty ###Added lines if there were no features in that release. so thought it may be better to do it before we hit the template.

[cookpete]

So we have to use the original idea, or something like:

{{#has-commits commits pattern="feat\(.+\)"}}
### Added
  {{#filter-commits commits pattern="feat\(.+\)"}}
    - {{subject}} [`{{shorthash}}`]({{href}})
  {{/filtered-commits}}
{{/has-commits}}

{{#has-commits commits pattern="chore\(.+\)"}}
### Changed
  {{#filter-commits commits pattern="chore\(.+\)"}}
    - {{subject}} [`{{shorthash}}`]({{href}})
  {{/filtered-commits}}
{{/has-commits}}

Which feels a bit too bloated.

[kelenakamura]

yeah i guess would just mean adding some helpers to your template.js file? though agree lots of logic added to the actual template.

[cookpete]

What about a single commit-list helper that encompasses all of the logic for the heading and the filtering:

{{#commit-list commits heading="### Added" pattern="feat\(.+\)"}}
  - {{subject}} [`{{shorthash}}`]({{href}})
{{/commit-list}}

{{#commit-list commits heading="### Changed" pattern="chore\(.+\)"}}
  - {{subject}} [`{{shorthash}}`]({{href}})
{{/commit-list}}

[kelenakamura]

much cleaner for sure. and likely does everything we were hoping to accomplish.

[kelenakamura]

will this be released to npm?