Git Release Notes Generator

🚀 Professional CLI tool for generating beautiful release notes from Git commits using conventional commit format.

✨ Features

• 🎯 Conventional Commits Support - Automatically parses feat:, fix:, docs:, etc.
• 📊 Rich Statistics - Commit counts, type breakdown, and summaries
• 🎨 Multiple Formats - Generates both Markdown and HTML output
• 🏷️ Flexible Ranges - Support for Git tags, branches, commits, and date ranges
• 🚀 Zero Configuration - Works out of the box with any Git repository
• 💡 Smart Categorization - Groups commits by type with emoji indicators
• ⚡ Fast & Lightweight - Built with TypeScript and modern tooling

📦 Installation

Global Installation (Recommended)

npm install -g git-release-notes-generator

After installation, use the rn or git-release-notes command anywhere:

# Navigate to any Git repository
cd /path/to/your/repo
rn --since "1 month ago" .

# Or specify repository path
rn --repo-path "/path/to/repo" --from v1.0.0 --to v2.0.0 .

Local Installation

npm install git-release-notes-generator
npx rn --help

🚀 Quick Start

# Generate release notes for the last month
rn --since "1 month ago" .

# Generate notes between two Git tags
rn --from v1.0.0 --to v2.0.0 .

# Use Git range syntax
rn --range "v1.0.0..v2.0.0" .

# Preview without creating files
rn --since "1 week ago" preview

# Generate for another repository
rn --repo-path "/path/to/other/repo" --since "2 weeks ago" .

📖 Usage

Basic Commands

# Show help
rn --help

# List all available commit types
rn list-types

# Show configuration
rn config

# Preview mode (no files written)
rn --since "1 month ago" preview

Date Filtering

# Relative dates
rn --since "1 week ago" .
rn --since "2 months ago" .
rn --since "last friday" .

# Absolute dates
rn --since "2024-01-01" .
rn --since "2024-01-01" --until "2024-12-31" .

Git References

# Tags
rn --from v1.0.0 --to v2.0.0 .

# Branches
rn --from main --to develop .

# Commit hashes
rn --from abc123 --to def456 .

# Git range syntax
rn --range "v1.0.0..HEAD" .
rn --range "main...develop" .

Options

# Exclude commit types
rn --since "1 month ago" --exclude chore docs test .

# Custom filename
rn --since "1 month ago" --filename "release-v2.0" .

# Verbose output
rn --since "1 month ago" --verbose .

# Specify repository
rn --repo-path "/path/to/repo" --since "1 month ago" .

📝 Output Examples

Markdown Output (release-notes.md)

# Release Notes - v1.0.0..v2.0.0

**Branch:** main  
**Generated:** November 13, 2025 at 02:30 PM

## 🚀 Features

- **auth:** add OAuth2 authentication support ([abc123](https://github.com/user/repo/commit/abc123))
- **api:** implement user profile endpoints ([def456](https://github.com/user/repo/commit/def456))

## 🐛 Bug Fixes

- **ui:** fix responsive layout on mobile devices ([ghi789](https://github.com/user/repo/commit/ghi789))

## 📊 Statistics

- **Total Commits:** 15
- **Features:** 8
- **Bug Fixes:** 4

HTML Output (release-notes.html)

Professional HTML format with:

• 🎨 Beautiful CSS styling
• 📱 Responsive design
• 🔗 Clickable commit links
• 📊 Interactive statistics
• 🎯 Clean typography

🎯 Conventional Commits

The tool automatically recognizes conventional commit formats:

• feat: - New features 🚀
• fix: - Bug fixes 🐛
• docs: - Documentation 📚
• style: - Code style changes 💄
• refactor: - Code refactoring ♻️
• perf: - Performance improvements ⚡
• test: - Tests 🧪
• build: - Build system changes 🔧
• ci: - CI/CD changes 👷
• chore: - Maintenance tasks 🔧
• revert: - Reverts ⏪

Scopes and Breaking Changes

# With scope
feat(auth): add login functionality

# Breaking change
feat!: redesign user API
feat(api)!: change authentication method

# Will be highlighted in output with ⚠️ warnings

⚙️ Configuration

No configuration files needed! The tool works with sensible defaults:

• Output Directory: Current directory (.)
• Filename: release-notes (generates .md and .html)
• Commit Types: All conventional types included
• Max Commits: 1000 (configurable)
• Include Merges: No (configurable)

🛠️ Development

# Clone and install
git clone https://github.com/rohitprabhakaran/git-release-notes-generator.git
cd git-release-notes-generator
npm install

# Build
npm run build

# Test
npm test

# Lint
npm run lint

📄 License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

🤝 Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'feat: add amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

📞 Support

• 🐛 Report Issues
• 💡 Request Features
• 📖 Documentation

Made with ❤️ by Rohit Prabhakaran