changelog-writing skill (samber): turn commits into release notes

Turns commits and pull requests into release notes: what shipped, what it means for the reader and what breaks.

Installs: 12.4K; on skills.sh
Stars: 7; on GitHub
Files: 7; besides SKILL.md
Updated: Nov 2026; last repo commit

changelog-writing produces the editorial layer a changelog generator does not: what to keep, what it means for a reader and what breaks. It collects the raw material for a version range, reduces it to the net diff, selects what a consumer can observe, tiers the release, writes impact-first entries and gives every breaking change three parts: what breaks, who it hits and what to do. It ends with a four-point verification gate.

It triggers on "a changelog", "release notes", "a GitHub release body" or "what's new". It bundles scripts/collect-release-material.sh, which dumps commits, merge subjects, changed files and a diffstat for a range. SKILL.md says not to use it for version bumping, tagging or publishing, or for a full upgrade guide.

Good for

Maintainers cutting a release with a messy commit history
Teams writing a GitHub release body or hosted what's-new page
Developers drafting app-store or in-product release notes

Install changelog-writing

Claude Code

Copy this prompt.

Install the changelog-writing skill in Claude Code. Run this command:

/plugin marketplace add samber/developer-relations-skills
/plugin install developer-relations-skills@developer-relations-skills

Then check that it loaded and tell me how to use it.

2
Paste it into Claude Code. It shows the change and asks before running it.

The README recommends installing the whole collection because its skills reference each other, and changelog-writing names other skills in the collection to hand work to. The whole-collection routes add all 93 skills in the repo (counted from the git tree); the repo holds no hooks, agents, commands or MCP server files, and 14 of its skills bundle a script. This skill runs scripts/collect-release-material.sh, which needs bash 3.2+ and git 2.21+. Pick one route per agent.

From the project README. Source.

What's in the skill

When it loads

Turns raw commits, pull requests and tickets into release notes developers actually read - a scannable record of what shipped, what it means in practice, and what breaks. Use whenever the user mentions a changelog, CHANGELOG.md, release notes, a GitHub release body for a tag, a hosted "what's new" page, app-store release notes, Keep a Changelog, or Common Changelog, or asks what to write for a release they just cut - even when the commit history is messy and follows no commit convention. Not for version bumping, tagging or publishing pipelines. Do NOT use for a full breaking-change upgrade guide - use samber/developer-relations-skills@version-migration-guide; for a narrative release post use samber/developer-relations-skills@engineering-blog-post.

Sections in SKILL.md

Scope check
Interview
Workflow
Selection rules
Announcement tiering
Which surface to produce first
Entry anatomy
Voice
Breaking changes and deprecations
Messy history
Audience variants
Verification gate
Invocation examples and expected output
Failure modes
Measurement

Key facts

Author: Samuel Berthe (named in SKILL.md metadata, LICENSE and the plugin manifest)
License: MIT (LICENSE file, SKILL.md frontmatter, plugin.json and marketplace.json agree)
Skill version: 1.0.4 (SKILL.md metadata)
Installs on skills.sh: 12,422 (Nov 2, 2026)
GitHub stars: 8 for the whole samber/developer-relations-skills repo (Nov 2, 2026)
Last repo commit: Nov 1, 2026
Audits on skills.sh: Gen Agent Trust Hub: pass, Socket: pass, Snyk: pass
What it includes: 8 files in the git tree: SKILL.md, evals/evals.json, 5 files under references/ and scripts/collect-release-material.sh.
Needs: bash 3.2+, git 2.21+, grep and sed (per the script header)
Part of: The developer-relations-skills plugin: 93 skill folders in the git tree
Works in: The README documents installs for Claude Code, Claude.ai, Codex, Cursor and Gemini CLI, all for the whole set

What it includes

Asks 9 questions, plus 3 more when several surfaces are involved.
Asks 9 questions, plus 3 more only when several surfaces or a high-impact release are involved.
Interview
Runs ten steps from collecting raw material to handing off open items.
Ten steps from collecting raw material to handing off open items for a human.
Workflow
Keeps changes a consumer can observe and drops dev-only churn.
Keeps changes a consumer can observe, such as defaults, error text and version floors, and drops dev-only churn.
Selection rules
Sets four tiers by expected reader impact, which decide the surfaces a release earns.
Four tiers by expected reader impact decide which surfaces a release earns.
Announcement tiering
Writes one to three sentences per entry, effect first, in the project's voice.
One to three sentences, effect first, in the project's tense and voice.
Entry anatomy
Uses a three-part form: what breaks, who it hits and what to do.
Three-part form: what breaks, who it hits, what to do.
Breaking changes
Checks traceability, coverage, unsourced numbers and breaking completeness.
Traceability, coverage, no unsourced numbers and breaking completeness.
Verification gate
Notes per surface, a traceability table, an exclusion list and open items for a human.
Output
Prints commits, merges, changed files, diffstat and contributors for a git range.
Takes --repo, --from and --to, and prints the commit list, merge subjects, breaking-change grep, changed files, diffstat and contributors for the range.
Runs code · scripts/collect-release-material.sh

From the official docs

Permissions

Low risk

changelog-writing is writing instructions plus one bash script that runs git log, diff and shortlog over a repository and version range you choose.

What it can do

Read your data
Create and change things
Delete things
Read-only mode

Watch out for

The script prints contributor names and emails
scripts/collect-release-material.sh ends with git shortlog -sne, which lists each author's name and email for the range. Those lines go into the conversation, so strip them if the repository is private. github.com
It may save notes to devrel-context.md
SKILL.md tells Claude to keep task and project context in devrel-context.md when memory lives in a file, or in the memory system your tool already uses. Check the file before you commit it. github.com
The whole-set install adds 93 skills, 14 with scripts
The README says to install every skill. The git tree has 93 skill folders, and 14 of them hold .py or .sh files. This skill bundles scripts/collect-release-material.sh. The tree holds no hooks, agents or MCP config files. github.com

Technical details

Turning on read-only	SKILL.md describes no read-only mode.
Sign-in and keys	SKILL.md and the bundled script name no account, key or token.
Scopes	Claude writes release notes in the conversation scripts/collect-release-material.sh runs git commands in the repository you point it at Writes devrel-context.md when memory lives in a file

Questions

What does changelog-writing do?

It turns the raw record of a release into notes a developer can scan in fifteen seconds. Each entry leads with the observable effect, breaking changes get a three-part entry and every entry must trace to a commit or pull request.

How do I install it?

Use the install box at the top. The README says to install every skill in the repo, because the skills point to each other. The box shows the whole-set route for each app. There is no Claude app route listed, because the collection script needs a local shell and your git repository.

What does the bundled script run?

scripts/collect-release-material.sh runs git log, git diff and git shortlog over a range, plus a grep of commit messages for words like breaking and deprecat. Its header says it needs bash and git 2.21+. The contributor list it prints includes names and email addresses.

Does it version, tag or publish my release?

No. SKILL.md says versioning, tagging and publishing belong to release-automation tooling, and the version scheme belongs to samber/developer-relations-skills@oss-release-policy.

Is it safe to install?

The script runs git commands in the repository you point it at and prints contributor names and emails. Commit text and ticket details you paste go into your conversation. The whole-set install adds 93 skills, 14 of which bundle scripts.

How is it different from version-migration-guide?

Release notes say what shipped. SKILL.md routes breaking changes that need before and after code, a deprecation timeline and codemods to samber/developer-relations-skills@version-migration-guide.

Information

updated Nov 2, 2026

Repository: samber/developer-relations-skills
Folder: skills/changelog-writing

samber/developer-relations-skills skills.sh

Sources

Docs, issue trackers and discussions this page is built from.

Show all 4

README · github.com
changelog-writing SKILL.md · github.com
changelog-writing scripts/collect-release-material.sh · github.com
LICENSE · github.com