dragoon0x release-narrative
release notes are user-facing. they exist to help users get value from what shipped. write for them, not for the internal team.
the structure
[version] — [date]
[one-sentence summary of the headline change in user value terms]
new
- [feature]: [what it does for the user, in their language]
improved
- [improvement]: [the before and after, concretely]
fixed
- [bug]: [the symptom, not the technical cause]
breaking changes (only when present)
- [thing]: [old behavior → new behavior, with migration step]
heads up (only when present)
- [anything that affects workflow even if not a breaking change]
the rules
order by user impact, not by ship order
the most important change to the most users goes first. internal ordering, alphabetical ordering, or ticket-number ordering all serve the team, not the reader.
one sentence per item
if you need two sentences, the item is two items, or you're explaining instead of stating.
user language
what the user sees and does. not what the database does.
- bad: "fixed null pointer exception in the auth middleware on token expiration"
- good: "fixed an issue where you'd get logged out unexpectedly during long sessions"
specific over general
- bad: "improved performance"
- good: "dashboards with 1000+ rows now load in 1.2 seconds, down from 4 seconds"
one verb tense across all items
usually past tense for what shipped. don't mix "added" and "you can now".
no internal jargon
no jira ticket numbers in user-facing notes. no internal project codenames. no "as discussed in the #product channel".
breaking changes get prominent treatment
if there's a breaking change, label it clearly, name the old and new behavior, and tell users exactly what to change.
what not to include
- celebrating internal milestones in user-facing channels
- "we listened to your feedback" (just ship the fix)
- "exciting news" (the news is the news)
- every commit (release notes are not a git log)
- bugs nobody noticed (sometimes leave them out; sometimes mention them with context)
the tone
calm. confident. specific. write like a colleague telling another colleague what happened, not like a marketing department.
if the brand voice is more playful, the structure stays the same; the diction relaxes a notch. don't sacrifice clarity for personality.
output
[version] — [date]
[summary sentence]
new
- [items in user-impact order]
improved
- [items in user-impact order]
fixed
- [items in user-impact order]
breaking changes (if any)
- [items with migration steps]
heads up (if any)
- [items]
length depends on the release. a small patch may be three bullets. a major release with breaking changes may be a longer post with deep-link sections.
what to avoid
- inflating tiny changes
- understating breaking changes
- using exclamation points to signal importance
- ending with "as always, thanks for using [product]"
- a post-mortem disguised as release notes (post-mortems are their own genre)