jtenniswood /updates
Summarize what changed in this project over the last 7 days, focusing on user-facing features and behavior rather than implementation details.
Workflow
1. Collect Recent Changes
Use the current date as the endpoint and inspect commits from the last 7 days.
git status --short --branch
git fetch origin --prune
git log --since="7 days ago" --date=short --pretty=format:'%h %ad %s' --decorate
git log --since="7 days ago" --name-only --pretty=format:'commit %h %ad %s' --date=short
If the local branch is behind or stale, note that the summary is based on the available local history unless a fetch succeeded.
2. Understand User Impact
For each meaningful change, inspect enough context to explain what a user can now do, see, configure, or rely on.
Useful commands:
git show --stat <commit>
git show --name-only <commit>
git show -- <path>
Prioritize these as user-facing:
- New visible UI behavior, controls, screens, or settings
- Firmware capabilities, device support, setup, update, or reliability changes
- Documentation that helps users operate, configure, or troubleshoot the project
- Release, install, or build changes that affect how users receive the project
Usually skip these unless they clearly affect users:
- Internal refactors
- Formatting-only changes
- Test-only changes
- CI-only maintenance
- Dependency bumps without a visible change
3. Order by Importance
Sort the summary by practical user impact:
- New or expanded capabilities
- Fixes for broken or confusing user workflows
- Reliability, compatibility, or update improvements
- Documentation or setup improvements
- Minor polish
When importance is close, put broader changes before narrow device- or page-specific changes.
4. Write the Update
Use one sentence per item in this format:
Feature: description of the user-facing change.
Rules:
- Keep each item to one sentence.
- Use approachable, non-developer language.
- Mention the feature or area first, then the benefit.
- Avoid commit hashes, file names, and developer terms unless the user asks.
- Combine related commits into one item when they deliver the same user-facing outcome.
- If there were no user-facing changes, say that clearly and mention that recent work appears to be internal maintenance.
Output Format
Updates from <start date> to <end date>:
- Feature: <one-sentence description>
- Feature: <one-sentence description>
If the 7-day window is ambiguous, use exact dates in the heading.