Changelog

Changelog is a command line utility (and module) that generates a changelog in markdown, json, or color output for Node modules in npm and any public github.com repo.

Command-line Usage

Node Modules in NPM

Modules do not need to be installed locally to get a changelog but they must define their repository url in their package.json.

$ changelog {npm module name} [options]

npm module: The module name, such as express.

Any Public Github.com Repository

$ changelog {Github.com repo url} [options]

Github.com repo url: Urls can be any format, such as https://github.com/dylang/changelog or git@github.com:dylang/changelog.git or even just github.com/dylang/changelog.

Options

• -c, --color Output as Color (default)
• -m, --markdown Output as Github-flavored Markdown (default when piping to a file)
• -j, --json Output as JSON
• -d, --debug Enable debugging
• -h, --help Display help and usage details

Install

Using npm just do:

$ npm-g install changelog

The -g installs changelog globally so you can use changelog anywhere.

Update

To make sure you have the latest version:

$ npm-g update

More Examples

• More Examples

Changelog API

Changelog can be easily integrated into other tools.

var Changelog = require('changelog');

Changelog.npm('request', callback);
Changelog.github('joyent/node', callback);

function callback(err, data) {

    //Check err for errors or just throw
    if (err) throw err;

    //With npm each "version" corresponds to all changes for that build pushed on npm
    //With github each "version" is one GMT day of changes
    data.versions.forEach(function(version) {
        console.log(version.version); //currently npm projects only
        console.log(version.date);    //JS Date

        //version.changes is an array of commit messages for that version
        version.changes.forEach(function(change) {
            console.log(' * ' + change);
        });
    });

    //Information about the project
    console.log(data.project);
}

How it works

• Changelog uses the Github V3 API and npmjs.org API.

Future

• Support paging Github's API to aquire more than 100 commits.
• Ability to set the start and end version.
• Use Git tags to detect versions (waiting for Github to fix Issue #17).
• Add header and/or footer to the output with module name, contributors, etc.

Want to help?

I love merging in pull requests.

• Support for brew and gem?
• Integrate into npm update?
• Create a git pull shortcut?

About

Dylan Greene built this because he was always curious what was changed when doing npm update. This module is inspired by but not related to TheChangelog.