release-changelog-auto

An automatic changelog updater for Git projects. A changelog.md file is a human-readable history of released and unreleased changes, built from Git tags and commits.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when preparing a release or publishing a package. It checks the current changelog, backs it up, and coordinates its generation in the Keep a Changelog format.
Why use it?
It reduces the manual work of turning repository history into release notes while protecting an existing changelog with a backup.

Cursor rule for Cursor

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add rules/usrrname/cursorrules/release-changelog-auto
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/usrrname/cursorrules

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 0 Nothing until a file matches its globs; then the whole rule loads.
When invoked 1,405 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00000 $0.01405
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00702
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00281
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00140

Measured 2d ago against content hash cf37bb2d05db, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

release-changelog-auto scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

.cursor/rules/utils/release-changelog-auto.mdc · 164 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 164 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Release Changelog Generation

Critical Rules

  • Must validate that changelog can be generated before proceeding
  • Must backup existing changelog.md if it exists
  • Must check if existing changelog follows Keep a Changelog format
  • Must call the existing changelog-generator-manual rule for actual generation
  • Must preserve existing changelog content when possible
  • Must provide clear feedback about changelog generation status

filters:

  • type: content pattern: "(release|version|tag|bump|publish|deploy).*(create|make|generate|prepare|ready)"
  • type: git_branch pattern: "^(?!main$|master$).*$"
  • type: event pattern: "chat_start|chat_response"

actions:

  • type: generate content: |

    📝 Changelog Generation Process

    I'll validate the environment and generate a comprehensive changelog for your release.

    1. Validate Changelog Generation:
      echo "🔄 Now generating comprehensive changelog..."
      
      # Backup existing changelog if it exists
      if [ -f "changelog.md" ]; then
        cp changelog.md changelog.md.backup
        echo "📋 Backed up existing changelog.md"
        
        # Check if existing changelog has proper structure
        if grep -q "## \[Unreleased\]" changelog.md; then
          echo "✅ Existing changelog has proper structure, will preserve content"
          PRESERVE_EXISTING=true
        else
          echo "⚠️ Existing changelog doesn't follow Keep a Changelog format"
          echo "Will create new changelog with existing content as reference"
          PRESERVE_EXISTING=false
        fi
      else
        echo "📝 No existing changelog.md found, creating new one"
        PRESERVE_EXISTING=false
      fi
      
      # Get all git tags sorted by version
      ALL_TAGS=$(git tag --sort=-version:refname)
      
      # Get commits since last tag (unreleased changes)
      UNRELEASED_COMMITS=$(git log --oneline --no-merges $(git describe --tags --abbrev=0 2>/dev/null || echo "")..HEAD)
      
      echo "📊 Changelog generation summary:"
      echo "  - Total git tags: $(echo "$ALL_TAGS" | wc -l | tr -d ' ')"
      echo "  - Unreleased commits: $(echo "$UNRELEASED_COMMITS" | wc -l | tr -d ' ')"
      echo "  - Preserve existing: $PRESERVE_EXISTING"
      

Read the full file on GitHub · 164 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 164 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A cf37bb2d05db

Subscribe to this mod's changes

release-changelog-auto is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository usrrname/cursorrules (10 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed ISC. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 1,405 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.