whathappened

A changelog generator using simply structured git commit messages

Inspired by

• Commit-It-Simple

and

• SemVer
• Angular Commit Message Format
• Auto Changelog
• git_commits.py

Install and Run

Installation is as simple as it gets:

$ pip install whathappened

To generate a changelog, run:

$ whathappened

Make sure to activate any virtual environment that you might be using first.

Some options are available:

$ whathappened --help
Usage: whathappened [OPTIONS] [GIT_LOG_ARGS]...

  Handle command line arguments. Extra arguments are passed to 'git log'.

Options:
  --overriding-version TEXT  Specify a version number to use [format: x.y.z]
  -o, --output PATH  The changelog destination [default: stdout]
  -e, --emoji        Include emoji in headings if present
  -d, --development  Include development-related commits
  -p, --prefix TEXT  Version prefix, often 'version' or 'v' [default: '']
  
  --version          Show the version and exit.
  --help             Show this message and exit.

To limit the range of commits, add a revision range argument.

To create a changelog of commits that are yet to be pushed:

$ whathappened origin..HEAD

To create a changelog of commits between (branch: main) and (tag: v1.0.0) and write the output to file:

$ whathappened -o CHANGELOG.md main..v1.0.0

To create a development changelog, with addition headings like 'Testing' and 'Reverted':

$ whathappened -d

Package Changelog

Created by Whathappened itself - very meta.

For the complete changelog, please see CHANGELOG.md.

Whathappened Commit Message Format

For a full description of the message format, see Commit-It-Simple.

Whathappened expects git commit messages in the format outlined below:

[optional breaking ]<type>[ optional (<scope>)]: <description>

[optional body]

<type> is recommended to be one of:

fix
feat
build
ci
docs
style
refactor
perf
test

Variations on these types like feat, feature, features, or doc, docs are seamlessly grouped together.

The <scope> is recommended to be a module, file, or folder name as appropriate.

More examples can be viewed on whathappened's own commits.

For a nice summary of types and what they mean, please see Understanding Semantic Commit Messages Using Git and Angular.

Emoji

Adding the --emoji flag will add emoji after each heading in the changelog. Below are the emoji that are used:

Production:

• Docs 📝
• Features ✨
• Fixes 🐛
• Performance ⚡️
• Refactorings ♻️
• Other 🃏

Development:

• Continuous Integration 🤖
• Reverted ☠️
• Testing 🧪