Generating a “Release Log” Quickly: From Git Commits to a Markdown table

The simplest way is just to have a nicely formatted git log. No “feature, fix, breaking” descriptions, just the Git Log in a markdown friendly format.

Pre-requisites:

• Node v8+
• NPM v5+
• Unix terminal
• A Git repository

Steps

npm install -g markdown-table-cli

Here’s an example of what the markdown table looks like in Wiki.js:

And that’s all there is to it.

Release notes are so important for your end users and even your non-engineering team. They help determine what was addressed in the last release. And that means transparency.

Helpful Resources

Pretty print formats: https://git-scm.com/docs/pretty-formats

Git commits to JSON: https://gist.github.com/textarcana/1306223