Briefly

briefly is a simple CLI tool to generate and publish concise product changelogs from git commits. It uses the OpenAI API to summarize commit logs into human-readable changelogs, and can publish them directly to Discord.

✨ Features

• Generate weekly product changelogs from git commit history.
• Summarize commits into clear, well-structured Markdown.
• Publish changelogs directly to a Discord channel (or thread) via webhook.
• Store API keys and defaults in a local .briefly config file inside each project.
• Works on macOS, Linux, and Windows (via Node.js / npm).

📦 Installation

npm install -g @jmscarpa/briefly

or use it without global install:

npx briefly <command>

Requirements:

• Node.js v18 or higher
• git and jq available in your system

⚙️ Setup

Run the setup command once in your project to store configuration (API key, webhook, defaults):

briefly setup

This will create a config file at:

• <your-project>/.briefly

The config file is a simple key=value format, for example:

OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
DISCORD_WEBHOOK=https://discord.com/api/webhooks/...
DEFAULT_MODEL=gpt-4o-mini
PROJECT_KIND=api
DEFAULT_ENV=staging
DEFAULT_APP_URL=https://staging.example.com

🔒 The file is created with restricted permissions (chmod 600) so only your user can read/write.

🚀 Usage

Generate a changelog

briefly generate --date 2025-08-18

• Runs in the current git repository
• --date: optional; only include commits since this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
• --out: optional; output file (default: briefly-summary.md)

Example output saved to briefly-summary.md:

# My Repo – Weekly Changelog

### Features
- Added new authentication flow
- Improved dashboard UI

### Fixes
- Fixed bug with user profile updates

Publish a changelog to Discord

briefly publish briefly-summary.md --kind api

• briefly-summary.md: changelog file generated with briefly generate
• --kind: type of project (api, frontend, backend, etc.)
• --thread-id: optional; publish to an existing thread
• --mention: optional; mention a user or role (e.g. <@&1234567890>)

Example:

briefly publish briefly-summary.md --kind api --mention "<@&1386829090006503586>" --thread-id "123456789012345678"

🛠 Development

Clone this repo and link locally:

git clone https://github.com/your-user/briefly.git
cd briefly
npm link

Now you can run:

briefly setup
briefly generate
briefly publish briefly-summary.md --kind frontend

📄 License

MIT License © João Mateus Scarpa