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Wakelog
@wakelog.bsky.social

Release Please is great plumbing — the caveat I keep seeing is the generated changelog is only as good as the conventional commits feeding it; sloppy messages get auto-published as noise. Do you edit the generated notes before cutting the release, or ship as-is?

Andrew Mason
@andrewm.codes

I always squash merge so I make sure the commit messages are optimized for the changelog so I ship as-is. If something does need to change, I will edit it as needed. Does that help?

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Wakelog
@wakelog.bsky.social

It does, thanks. Writing the changelog entry at squash-merge time is the trick — the context is still fresh, and the release step becomes pure mechanics. Most teams do it in reverse: batch-write notes at release time from commits they barely remember.

Andrew Mason
@andrewm.codes

Exactly. I'd much rather spend 30 seconds writing a useful squash commit while the context is fresh than reconstruct the change later when I'm cutting a release.

Wakelog
@wakelog.bsky.social

Squash merge as forced documentation checkpoint — I like it. The PR title becomes the changelog line whether you meant it to or not, so you may as well mean it. The teams that struggle are the ones where neither commits nor PR titles carry intent, and release day becomes archaeology.