Automated changelogs [WIP]

[infinisil]

This adds a fully automated changelog and version pipeline, fixing #38. I looked into mainly Towncrier and Changie, but both of them weren't super integrated, so I wrote my own solution, which ended up being fairly simple.

The solution here works like this:

• Every PR has to have a "This change is user-facing" checkbox to the PR description (checked in the default PR template), and either:

  • Uncheck it to indicate it's not a user-facing change

  • Or add a changelog by creating a file in one of changes/unreleased/{major,medium,minor}.

    The file has to be a markdown file with its first line like # (and no other lines starting with #).

• Every week on Tuesday (presumably after the automated update PR from Monday is merged, but can also be triggered manually at any point), a version PR is opened if the main branch has any unreleased changelogs. This PR includes:

  • Depending on whether there are any major, medium or only minor changelogs, the appropriate version number is bumped in Cargo.toml

  • A new changes/released/$MAJOR.$MEDIUM.$MINOR.md file that compiles all previously unreleased changelogs into a single file. Each changelog entry is a Markdown list entry of the form

    - <title> by @<author> in #<PR>
      <optional rest of lines>

    The author and PR number is automatically determined based on which PR added the changelog file.

• Once that PR is merged (optionally with manual updates), the release will be published, with the compiled changelog included.

  Currently there's nothing that would ever update the changelog of releases, but I don't expect that to be necessary.

This PR needs more testing and comments before it can be merged.

• This change is user-facing

---

This work is sponsored by Antithesis ✨

[willbush]

Think we should have a PR template to make it easier to un-comment this string?

[infinisil]

Yeah there's definitely something to improve here, though it's not trivial, because this doesn't take into account whether the string occurs in a comment or not. So we'd have to start using some parser.

Maybe it could be a checkbox that has to be ticked instead, something like:

• This change is not user-facing and therefore doesn't need a changelog entry

I'm thinking this would work pretty well. Edit: Now using this with a PR template

[willbush]

I can't help it

https://imgflip.com/i/8mxb05

[infinisil]

I can't help it

https://imgflip.com/i/8mxb05

You're on point 😅 (though I had to lookup NIH!)

Tbh it really surprised me to not find anything like this existing already, it seems like a relatively straightforward idea. If there's anything that does that already I think it would be great to use it instead!

[willbush]

I can't help it
https://imgflip.com/i/8mxb05

You're on point 😅 (though I had to lookup NIH!)

Tbh it really surprised me to not find anything like this existing already, it seems like a relatively straightforward idea. If there's anything that does that already I think it would be great to use it instead!

I'm just poking fun! I was reminded of it around the xz utils backdoor news when I was reading Running the “Reflections on Trusting Trust” Compiler. Made me wonder how long the idea goes back.