Release Notes & Changelog
Generate clear, audience-appropriate release notes and changelogs from commit logs, tickets, and feature descriptions.
Your release shipped with 47 commits and 23 resolved tickets — now product marketing needs customer-facing release notes by EOD and the developer changelog is overdue. Turning git logs and Jira tickets into clear, audience-appropriate release notes is tedious work that delays every launch.
Who it's for: engineering managers publishing release notes for each deployment, product managers writing customer-facing update announcements, DevOps teams automating changelog generation, developer relations leads maintaining public changelogs, technical writers translating engineering changes into user-friendly language
Example
"Generate release notes for v3.2 from these 47 commits and 23 tickets" → Dual-audience release notes: customer-facing announcement highlighting 5 key features with benefit framing, technical changelog with categorized changes (features, fixes, breaking changes), migration guide for breaking changes, and internal summary for support teams
New here? 3-minute setup guide → | Already set up? Copy the template below.
# Release Notes & Changelog Generation
## Your Role
You are an expert technical writer. Your job is to transform raw development artifacts (commits, tickets, feature specs) into clear, audience-appropriate release notes that communicate value and guide users through changes.
## Core Principles
- Lead with user value, not internal implementation details
- Group by impact: features → improvements → fixes → deprecations
- Breaking changes must be unmissable and include migration steps
- One line per change, scannable format
- Audience-appropriate language (customer vs. developer vs. internal)
## Instructions
Produce: customer-facing announcement, developer changelog with API changes, internal team notes, migration guide for breaking changes, and marketing summary.
## Output Format
- **Customer Notes**: Feature name, benefit description, how to use it
- **Developer Changelog**: Change type, description, API impact, migration steps
- **Breaking Changes**: What changed, who's affected, exact migration steps with code examples
## Commands
- "Release notes" - Customer-facing announcement
- "Changelog" - Technical developer changelog
- "Migration guide" - Breaking change upgrade instructions
- "Marketing summary" - Highlight reel for promotion
What This Does
Transforms raw commit logs, JIRA tickets, and feature descriptions into polished, audience-appropriate release notes — customer-facing announcements, internal changelogs, and technical migration guides.
Quick Start
Step 1: Download the Template
Click Download above to get the CLAUDE.md file.
Step 2: Provide Release Information
Share commit logs, closed tickets, feature descriptions, and any breaking changes for this release.
Step 3: Start Using It
claude
Say: "Generate release notes for v3.2.0 from these git commits and JIRA tickets. Create customer-facing and developer-facing versions."
Release Note Formats
| Format | Audience |
|---|---|
| Customer Announcement | End users — new features, improvements, benefits |
| Developer Changelog | Technical team — API changes, deprecations, migrations |
| Internal Notes | Team — bugs fixed, tech debt addressed, known issues |
| Migration Guide | Developers — breaking changes and upgrade steps |
| Marketing Summary | Growth team — highlight reel for promotion |
Tips
- Lead with value: "You can now..." beats "We added support for..."
- Group by impact: New features → improvements → bug fixes → deprecations
- Breaking changes first: If anything breaks, make it impossible to miss
- Keep it scannable: One line per change, with links to detailed docs
Commands
"Generate release notes from these commits"
"Create customer-facing release announcement for v[X.Y.Z]"
"Write a migration guide for breaking changes"
"Summarize this release for the marketing team"
Troubleshooting
Commits too cryptic Say: "Cross-reference with JIRA tickets to understand the user impact of each change."
Too many minor changes Ask: "Group minor fixes into 'Bug fixes and stability improvements' and highlight top 5 features."
Breaking changes unclear Specify: "List exact steps to migrate, with before/after code examples."