Changelog Orchestrator

Overview

This skill turns raw repo activity (merged PRs, issues, commits, optional Slack updates) into a publishable changelog draft and prepares a branch/PR for review.

Prerequisites

• A project config file at .changelog-config.json in the target repo.
• Required environment variables set (at minimum GITHUB_TOKEN for GitHub source).
• Git available in PATH; gh optional (used for PR creation if configured).

Instructions

1. Read .changelog-config.json from the repo root.
2. Validate it with ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/validate_config.py.
3. Decide date range:
4. Load the configured markdown template (or fall back to ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/assets/weekly-template.md).
5. Render the final markdown using ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/render_template.py.
6. Ensure frontmatter contains at least date (ISO) and version (SemVer if known; otherwise 0.0.0).
7. Run deterministic checks using ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/quality_score.py.
8. If score is below threshold:
9. Write the changelog file to the configured output_path.
10. Create a branch changelog-YYYY-MM-DD, commit with docs: add changelog for YYYY-MM-DD.
11. If gh is configured, open a PR; otherwise, print the exact commands the user should run.

See ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/implementation.md for detailed implementation guide.

Output

• A markdown changelog draft (usually CHANGELOG.md), plus an optional PR URL.
• A quality report (score + findings) from ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/quality_score.py.

Error Handling

See ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/errors.md for comprehensive error handling.

Examples

See ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/examples.md for detailed examples.

Resources

• Validate config: ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/validate_config.py
• Render template: ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/render_template.py
• Quality scoring: ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/quality_score.py
• Default templates:
  • ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/assets/default-changelog.md
  • ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/assets/weekly-template.md
  • ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/assets/release-template.md