relog

A small CLI that cuts a release driven by your [Unreleased] section in a Keep a Changelog formatted file. Project- and language-agnostic — it works for any project with a KaC-style changelog and a GitHub-style remote.

The name is short for release log — and relog literally re-logs the [Unreleased] work as a versioned entry.

Given a clean working tree, relog:

1. Detects the bump type (major/minor/patch) from the subheaders under [Unreleased].
2. Rewrites the changelog: inserts a ## [X.Y.Z] - YYYY-MM-DD header, updates the [Unreleased] reference link, adds a new compare link.
3. Commits the changelog and creates an annotated git tag.
4. Runs configurable pre_commit hooks before staging and committing.
5. Prompts before pushing to the remote.

Install

Download a static binary for your platform from the releases page and put it on your $PATH.

Or build from source (requires Rust 1.85+):

cargo install --git https://github.com/OWNER/relog

Usage

relog [VERSION] [--dry-run] [--chdir DIR]

Auto-detect the bump from the changelog:

$ relog
Releasing 0.13.0 (previous: 0.12.0)
  tag:  v0.13.0
  date: 2026-05-03
...
Push master and tag to origin? [y/N]

Or pass an explicit version:

$ relog 1.0.0

Use --dry-run to preview without making changes.

Bump detection

The bump kind is decided by the ### subheaders under ## [Unreleased]:

Trigger	Bump
### Removed (or the word "Breaking" anywhere)	Major
### Added, ### Changed, ### Deprecated	Minor
### Fixed	Patch

Higher-precedence rules win: a section with both ### Added and ### Removed is a major bump.

If the [Unreleased] section is empty, relog refuses to release.

Configuration: release.conf

Optional file at the repository root. Every field has a sensible default:

# falls back to changelog.md / CHANGELOG.md / Changelog.md if not set
changelog = changelog.md
# defaults to `main` if it exists, otherwise `master`
branch    = main
remote    = origin

# `pre_commit` may repeat; each occurrence is one command run before
# staging the changelog and committing.
# pre_commit = ...

Format: one key = value per line. Blank lines and # comments are ignored. Values are not quoted — everything after the first = (trimmed) is the value.

The repository URL used in the new compare link is taken from the existing [Unreleased]: ... reference in the changelog, so any forge (GitHub, GitLab, Codeberg, sourcehut, …) works without configuration.

Hooks

Each pre_commit hook is a shell command run via sh -c in the repository root, after the changelog has been rewritten and before it is staged. These environment variables are exported to every hook:

Variable	Example
RELEASE_VERSION	1.2.3
RELEASE_PREV_VERSION	1.1.0
RELEASE_TAG	v1.2.3
RELEASE_MAJOR	1

A hook that exits non-zero aborts the release. Anything the hook modifies should be staged by the hook itself (git add ...) — only the changelog is staged automatically.

Example: rewrite a version reference in the README

pre_commit = sed -i "" "s|action@v$RELEASE_PREV_VERSION|action@v$RELEASE_VERSION|g" readme.md
pre_commit = git add readme.md

For multi-step commands, chain with && — each hook is passed to sh -c. Multi-line values aren't supported; for anything complex, put the steps in a script file and reference it.

Source layout

Parsing and decision logic are kept separate from side effects:

File	Responsibility
src/changelog.rs	Read-only KaC parser + pure rewriter
src/bump.rs	Pure bump detection
src/config.rs	release.conf loader
src/git.rs	Thin wrapper around the git CLI
src/hooks.rs	Phase-based hook runner
src/release.rs	Orchestrator
src/cli.rs	Argument parser + entry point

Run the tests:

cargo test

License

MIT.