Project Change Log

Project Change Log

Automatically maintain a CHANGELOG.md file following the Keep a Changelog standard.

When to Use

• After creating a commit
• When /commit command is executed
• When user asks to update changelog
• When releasing a new version
• When CHANGELOG.md has grown large (rotate old releases into archives — see Keeping the changelog small)

Changelog Format

The standard format is CHANGELOG.md in the project root, following Keep a Changelog:

# Changelog

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

The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/),
and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/).

## [Unreleased]

### Added
- New feature description

### Changed
- Change description

### Fixed
- Bug fix description

## [1.0.0] - 2026-01-04

### Added
- Initial release features

Change Categories

Process

1. Detect Changelog

Check if CHANGELOG.md exists in project root:

• If exists: Read current content
• If not: Create with template

2. Analyze Commit

Extract from the commit:

• Type: feat, fix, docs, etc.
• Scope: Affected area
• Description: What changed
• Date: Current date (YYYY-MM-DD)
• Author: From git config

3. Map Commit Type to Category

4. Update Changelog

Add entry under [Unreleased] section in appropriate category:

## [Unreleased]

### Added
- New entry here with description

5. Version Release

When releasing a version:

1. Move [Unreleased] content to new version section
2. Add version number and date
3. Create new empty [Unreleased] section
4. Rotate old releases so the file stays small — run the archive script (it's a no-op until there are more than 20 versions):

python3 .claude/skills/project-change-log/scripts/rotate_changelog.py --apply

Keeping the changelog small (archiving)

A single CHANGELOG.md grows without bound — one real project reached 197 releases / 2,508 lines / 420 KB. To keep it readable, rotate old releases into per-major archive files.

Policy: keep [Unreleased] + the newest 20 versions in CHANGELOG.md; move older versions into changelog/CHANGELOG-<major>.x.md (e.g. changelog/CHANGELOG-1.x.md), linked from an ## Older releases index at the bottom of the main file.

CHANGELOG.md                 # title + intro + [Unreleased] + newest 20 + index
changelog/
  CHANGELOG-1.x.md           # archived 1.x releases, newest-first
  CHANGELOG-2.x.md           # created when a 2.x release is first rotated out

Use the helper script — safe by default (dry run unless --apply), Python 3 stdlib only, idempotent, and guaranteed not to drop or duplicate any release:

# Preview what would move (no writes):
python3 .claude/skills/project-change-log/scripts/rotate_changelog.py

# Rotate for real:
python3 .claude/skills/project-change-log/scripts/rotate_changelog.py --apply

Run it as the last step of a version release (no-op below 20 versions) or any time the file feels large.

First-time adoption on an existing project (e.g. after this skill is added or updated): run the dry run first and confirm the reported version count looks right, then --apply once and commit the new changelog/ directory with the trimmed CHANGELOG.md in a single commit. It's idempotent, so re-running after later skill updates is safe. If the dry run reports 0/too few versions, the file uses a non-standard heading format — normalize headings to ## [x.y.z] - YYYY-MM-DD first. Full steps + troubleshooting: references/archiving.md.

Flags: --keep N (default 20), --dir changelog, --file CHANGELOG.md. Full details, behavior guarantees, and edge cases: see references/archiving.md.

Entry Format

Each entry should be:

• One line per change
• Start with capital letter
• No period at end
• Include scope if relevant: **scope**: description

Examples:

### Added
- **auth**: OAuth2 login with Google and GitHub
- User profile settings page
- Dark mode toggle

### Fixed
- **api**: Handle null response in user endpoint
- Memory leak in websocket connections

Template

Initial CHANGELOG.md template:

# Changelog

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

The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/),
and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/).

## [Unreleased]

### Added

### Changed

### Fixed

Integration with Commit

After each commit:

1. Parse commit message for type and description
2. Determine changelog category
3. Add entry under [Unreleased]
4. Stage CHANGELOG.md (do not create separate commit)

Examples

Example 1: Feature Commit

Commit: feat(auth): add OAuth2 login support

Changelog Entry:

### Added
- **auth**: OAuth2 login support

Example 2: Bug Fix

Commit: fix(api): handle null response in user endpoint

Changelog Entry:

### Fixed
- **api**: Handle null response in user endpoint

Example 3: Version Release

Before:

## [Unreleased]

### Added
- Feature A
- Feature B

### Fixed
- Bug fix X

After releasing v1.2.0:

## [Unreleased]

## [1.2.0] - 2026-01-04

### Added
- Feature A
- Feature B

### Fixed
- Bug fix X