Git Changelog

When to use

Generate a human-readable changelog from git commit history. Works with any git repository.

Setup

No dependencies required. Uses only git and bash.

How to

Basic changelog (last 30 days or since last tag)

bash scripts/changelog.sh --repo /path/to/repo

Since a specific date

bash scripts/changelog.sh --repo /path/to/repo --since "2026-01-01"

Date range

bash scripts/changelog.sh --repo /path/to/repo --since "2026-01-01" --until "2026-02-01"

JSON output (for programmatic use)

bash scripts/changelog.sh --repo /path/to/repo --format json

Plain text output

bash scripts/changelog.sh --repo /path/to/repo --format plain

Output Formats

Format	Description
markdown	Default. Headers, commit hashes, authors, dates
plain	Simple bullet list
json	Array of commit objects with hash, subject, author, date, type

Options

Flag	Description	Default
--repo <path>	Repository path	Current directory
--since <date>	Start date	Last tag or 30 days ago
--until <date>	End date	Now
--format <fmt>	Output format	markdown
--group	Group by conventional commit type	Off (needs bash 4+)

Notes

• Automatically detects the last git tag and uses it as the start point
• Excludes merge commits for cleaner output
• Conventional commit types (feat/fix/docs/etc) are extracted for JSON output
• --group mode requires bash 4+ (macOS ships with 3.2; install via brew install bash)