cstm-changeset

A wrapper around the changesets CLI that adds structured business context prompts to the add command — because changelogs should tell the why, not just the what.

Why?

Changesets is a fantastic tool for managing versioning and changelogs. But out of the box, it only captures what changed. When a teammate (or future you) looks back at the changelog, questions like these often go unanswered:

• What business value did this change bring?
• Did this affect clients? How?
• Was it tested? How thoroughly?

cstm-changeset fixes that by adding a quick interactive prompt after changeset add, appending structured context directly to your changeset file.

Installation

npm install -D cstm-changeset

Note: Requires Node.js 24+ and @changesets/cli as a peer dependency.

Usage

Use cstm-changeset as a drop-in replacement for changeset:

npx cstm-changeset [command] [options]

Commands

| Command | Description | | ------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------- | | add | Create a changeset with business context prompts (default) | | status | Show changeset status | | version | Apply changesets and update package versions | | publish | Publish packages to npm | | init | Initialize changesets in your project | | pre <enter\|exit> | Enter or exit prerelease mode | | tag | Create git tags for published packages |

All commands (except add) pass through directly to the underlying changeset CLI.

Options

| Option | Description | | --------------- | ------------------- | | -h, --help | Show help message | | -v, --version | Show version number |

Examples

# Create a changeset with business context prompts
npx cstm-changeset
npx cstm-changeset add

# Check changeset status
npx cstm-changeset status

# Apply changesets and bump versions
npx cstm-changeset version

# Publish to npm
npx cstm-changeset publish

# Initialize changesets in a new project
npx cstm-changeset init

The Add Flow

When you run npx cstm-changeset (or npx cstm-changeset add), the CLI will:

1. Run the standard changeset add flow (package selection, bump type, summary)
2. Prompt you with follow-up questions about business context
3. Append the answers to the newly created changeset file

Business Context Questions

1. What value does this change bring to the business?
2. Does this carry client impact? (if yes, describe it)
3. Has this been tested? (if yes, describe how)

Example Output

Here's what gets appended to your changeset:

## Business Context

**Business value:** Improves checkout conversion by reducing page load time

**Client impact:** Yes — Clients using the legacy API will need to migrate

**Tested:** Yes — Ran load tests simulating 10k concurrent users

Requirements

• Node.js 24+
• @changesets/cli 2+ (peer dependency)

License

MIT