Generate CHANGELOG.md using changelog-from-release tool

[Bertk]

The CHANGELOG.md can be generated using available tools and should be updated within the PR. This might require addition conventions for PR and git commits.

• changelog-from-release
  • uses git releases to generate CHANGELOG.md
  • GitHub action rhysd/changelog-from-release/action@v3
• Versionize using conventional commit messages.
  • This might require addition conventions for PR and git commits.
  • Versionize is a dotnet tool
• github-changelog-generator
  • allows to add existing manual created CHANGELOG.md
• ...

There are many tools and my favored for coverlet is [changelog-from-release]. I created a CHANGELOG.md for coverlet with this tools (see attachment) with command changelog-from-release -r https://github.com/coverlet-coverage/coverlet.

Proposal:
Create GitHub action which created CHANGELOG.md and upload the file as build artifact. This can be used for release activity or using draft releases even for PR.

@daveMueller @MarcoRossignoli
Please share your thoughts on this topic .

CHANGELOG.md

see also:

• https://github.com/marketplace/actions/release-drafter

Draft release is updated every time the pipeline with the release-drafter action is called. 🚀

[MarcoRossignoli]

looks interesting, @daveMueller what you think?

[daveMueller]

Nothing against that. As long as it is just release-drafter and changelog-from-release and I don't need to look into additional tools to fix something when it breaks. What I think is a bit annoying that you need changelog-from-release to create the markdown as release-drafter doesn't have a option to also create it.
What I'm also missing a bit is the option to manually add something to the markdown, e.g. description of breaking changes etc... Do I then need to update the draft release first with my manual information so that it is included in the changelog?

[Bertk]

Yes, the (draft) release information will be the source for CHANGELOG.md. release-drafter will create information which can be used and modified/extended but the information depends on the correct labeling.

Maybe we can just active release-drafter draft now and changelog-from-release as the next step.

changelog-from-release will update the format of CHANGELOG.md and the current template is not using e.g. a preamble. The existing coverlet releases need also updates to resolve markdown format issues. By the way, I can not modify the coverlet release information.