A good changelog is a curated, chronological list of notable changes made to a project
When users see regular, clearly explained updates, they know the software is actively maintained. This transparency builds long-term customer loyalty and confidence. 2. Reduced Support Burden
A is a curated, chronologically ordered file that records all notable changes made to a project, typically software, between different versions. Its primary purpose is to help users and contributors understand exactly what has changed, including new features, bug fixes, and performance improvements, without having to dig through technical commit logs. Why Keep a Changelog? CHANGELOG
Incremented when you make backwards-compatible bug fixes (found under Fixed or Security ).
Enumerate any bug fixes, security patches, or error corrections resolved in the release. A good changelog is a curated, chronological list
A version without a date is useless for troubleshooting. If a bug appeared on May 10th, and your changelog shows version 1.1.0 was released on May 12th, you immediately know the bug isn't in that version. Use ISO 8601 format ( YYYY-MM-DD ).
Changes should be grouped under standard headings. The most common and useful categories are: Reduced Support Burden A is a curated, chronologically
A changelog is deeply intertwined with . Semantic versioning uses a three-part number format: MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH (e.g., v2.4.1). Your changelog entries dictate how these numbers change:
Pro tip: Use automation to validate the changelog (e.g., ensuring a release has an entry), but use a human to write the content.
While some developers use tools to automatically generate changelogs from Git commit messages , purely automated logs often contain noise that is irrelevant to end-users (like "fixed typo in README").
A true changelog serves three distinct audiences: