tftsr-devops_investigation/ticket-git-cliff-changelog.md

feat: Automated Changelog via git-cliff

Description

Introduces automated changelog generation using git-cliff, a tool that parses conventional commits and produces formatted Markdown changelogs.

Previously, every Gitea release body contained only the static text "Release vX.Y.Z". With this change, releases display a categorised, human-readable list of all commits since the previous version.

Root cause / motivation: No changelog tooling existed. The project follows Conventional Commits throughout but the information was never surfaced to end-users.

Files changed:

• cliff.toml (new) — git-cliff configuration; defines commit parsers, ignored tags, output template, and which commit types appear in the changelog
• CHANGELOG.md (new) — bootstrapped from all existing tags; maintained by CI going forward
• .github/workflows/release.yml — changelog job that runs after autotag
• docs/wiki/CICD-Pipeline.md — "Changelog Generation" section added

Acceptance Criteria

• cliff.toml present at repo root with working Tera template
• CHANGELOG.md present at repo root, bootstrapped from all existing semver tags
• changelog job in release.yml runs after autotag (parallel with build jobs)
• Each GitHub Release body shows grouped conventional-commit entries instead of static "Release vX.Y.Z"
• CHANGELOG.md committed to main on every release with [skip ci] suffix (no infinite re-trigger loop)
• CHANGELOG.md uploaded as a downloadable release asset
• CI/chore/build/test/style commits excluded from changelog output
• docs/wiki/CICD-Pipeline.md documents the changelog generation process

Work Implemented

cliff.toml

• Tera template with proper whitespace control (-%} / {%- ) for clean output
• Included commit types: feat, fix, perf, docs, refactor
• Excluded commit types: ci, chore, build, test, style
• ignore_tags = "rc|alpha|beta" — pre-release tags excluded from version boundaries
• filter_unconventional = true — non-conventional commits dropped silently
• sort_commits = "oldest" — chronological order within each version

CHANGELOG.md

• Bootstrapped locally using git-cliff v2.7.0 (aarch64 musl binary)
• Covers all tagged versions from v0.1.0 through v0.2.49 plus [Unreleased]
• 267 lines covering the full project history

.github/workflows/release.yml — changelog job

• needs: autotag — waits for the new tag to exist before running
• Full history clone: git fetch --tags --depth=2147483647 so git-cliff can resolve all version boundaries
• git-cliff v2.7.0 downloaded as a static x86_64 musl binary (~5 MB); no custom image required
• Generates full CHANGELOG.md and per-release notes (--latest --strip all)
• Updates the GitHub Release body via gh release edit with JSON-safe escaping (jq -Rs .)
• Commits CHANGELOG.md to main with [skip ci] to prevent workflow re-trigger
• Deletes any existing CHANGELOG.md asset before re-uploading (rerun-safe)
• Runs in parallel with all build jobs — no added wall-clock latency

docs/wiki/CICD-Pipeline.md

• Added "Changelog Generation" section before "Known Issues & Fixes"
• Describes the five-step process, cliff.toml settings, and loop prevention mechanism

Testing Needed

• Merge this PR to master; verify changelog CI job succeeds in Gitea Actions
• Check Gitea release body for the new version tag — should show grouped commit list
• Verify CHANGELOG.md was committed to master (check git log after CI runs)
• Verify CHANGELOG.md appears as a downloadable asset on the release page
• Push a subsequent commit to master; confirm the [skip ci] CHANGELOG commit does NOT trigger a second run of auto-tag.yml
• Confirm CI/chore commits are absent from the release body