Ionide.KeepAChangelog

This project implements a Changelog parser according to the spec at KeepAChangelog. It also provides MSBuild tasks and targets to automate the setting of Versions and Package Release Notes for your NuGet packages, so that the Changelogs are your source of truth.

When configured, this package will set the Version, PackageVersion, and PackageReleaseNotes of your packable project with the matching data from the latest Changelog release, as well as adding AssemblyMetadata for the BuildDate in the YYYY-mm-dd format.

Installation

The MSBuild package is authored as a set of tasks and targets that are used automatically. You just have to install the Ionide.KeepAChangelog.Tasks package and you're all set!

<ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="Ionide.KeepAChangelog.Tasks" Version="<insert here>" PrivateAssets="all" />
</ItemGroup>

Examples

It might be helpful to see how this library can help you. Imagine you have a project file like this:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>netstandard2.0</TargetFramework>
    <GenerateDocumentationFile>true</GenerateDocumentationFile>
  </PropertyGroup>
  <ItemGroup>
    <Compile Include="Main.fs" />
  </ItemGroup>
</Project>

and a CHANGELOG.md file like this:

# Changelog

## 1.0.0 - 2022-01-14

### Added

* Initial release

packaging the project with this library results in the same result as packing a project that looks like this:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
 <PropertyGroup>
   <TargetFramework>netstandard2.0</TargetFramework>
   <GenerateDocumentationFile>true</GenerateDocumentationFile>
   <Version>1.0.0</Version>
   <PackageVersion>1.0.0</PackageVersion>
   <ReleaseNotes>
## 1.0.0 - 2022-01-14

### Added

* Initial release
   </ReleaseNotes>
 </PropertyGroup>
 <ItemGroup>
   <Compile Include="Main.fs" />
 </ItemGroup>
</Project>

If your changelog has multiple versions, the latest one will be used.

Customization

There's really only one property that matters for these targets, and that's ChangelogFile. This needs to point to the Changelog file you want to read, but it defaults to CHANGELOG.md in the root of a given project in case you want to adhere to defaults.

API

When the task runs, it writes several output items and properties:

Name	Type	Description
UnreleasedChangelog	UnreleasedChangelogData option	If present, there was an 'Unreleased' section in the Changelog. This structure will contain the sections present.
CurrentReleaseChangelog	ReleaseChangelogData option	If present, there was at least one released logged in the Changelog. This structure will contain the details of each one.
AllReleasedChangelogs	ReleaseChangelogData list	Contains the ordered list of all released in the ChangelogFile, descending.
LatestReleaseNotes	string option	If present, contains the concatenated list of all Changelog sections for the latest release. This is a convenience property so that you don't have to String.Join all the lines in the ReleaseChangelogData yourself!

ChangelogData

This TaskItem has metadata for each of the known sections of a Changelog:

• Added
• Changed
• Deprecated
• Removed
• Fixed
• Security

In each case, the value of the metadata is the newline-concatenated list of all of the Changelog Entries for that section.

UnreleasedChangelogData

This structure is a ChangelogData with an Identity of "Unreleased".

ReleaseChangelogData

This structure is the same as ChangelogData, but it contains two more items of metadata:

• the Identity of the TaskItem is the Semantic Version of the release
• the Date of the TaskItem is the YYYY-MM-DD-formatted date of the release

How to contribute

Imposter syndrome disclaimer: I want your help. No really, I do.

There might be a little voice inside that tells you you're not ready; that you need to do one more tutorial, or learn another framework, or write a few more blog posts before you can help me with this project.

I assure you, that's not the case.

This project has some clear Contribution Guidelines and expectations that you can read here.

The contribution guidelines outline the process that you'll need to follow to get a patch merged. By making expectations and process explicit, I hope it will make it easier for you to contribute.

And you don't just have to write code. You can help out by writing documentation, tests, or even by giving feedback about this work. (And yes, that includes giving feedback about the contribution guidelines.)

Thank you for contributing!

Contributing and copyright

The project is hosted on GitHub where you can report issues, fork the project and submit pull requests.

The library is available under MIT license, which allows modification and redistribution for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.

Please note that this project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By participating in this project you agree to abide by its terms.