Dependabot Changelog Helper

Automatically update your changelog on Dependabot pull requests! No more manually updating a changelog for dependency upgrades. Just fast and easy dependency upgrades.

We all love Dependabot...

But it can feel overwhelming and require additional work to update things like versions and changelogs.

Built around the KeepAChangelog format, this action looks for upgraded dependencies on a Dependabot pull request and adds them to your changelog.

• Handles adding the appropriate ### Dependencies and/or ## [<version>] sections if needed (including UNRELEASED)
• Supports multi-package updates in a single pull request
• Updates the entry for a dependency if the dependency had been upgraded previously in the same version
• Includes link(s) to associated pull requests that upgraded the dependency

Usage

Example Workflow

The workflow example below will get you up-and-running for your Dependabot pull requests. This configuration will add entries to an UNRELEASED section of your ./CHANGELOG.md and will run on any pull request labeled with dependencies (which is added by Dependabot as a default)

name: 'pull-request'
on:
  pull_request:
    types:
      - opened
      - synchronize
      - reopened
      - ready_for_review
      - labeled
      - unlabeled

jobs:
  changelog:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          # Depending on your needs, you can use a token that will re-trigger workflows
          # See https://github.com/stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action#commits-of-this-action-do-not-trigger-new-workflow-runs
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

      - uses: dangoslen/dependabot-changelog-helper@v3
        with:
          activationLabels: dependencies
          changelogPath: './CHANGELOG.md'

      # This step is required for committing the changes to your branch. 
      # See https://github.com/stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action#commits-of-this-action-do-not-trigger-new-workflow-runs 
      - uses: stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v4
        with:
          commit_message: "Updated Changelog"

Entry Format

The format for an entry is as follows

- <entryPrefix> <package> from <oldVersion> to <newVersion> (#pr-number[, #pr-number])`

The <entryPrefix> can be controlled via the entry-prefix input.

Inputs / Properties

Below are the properties you can use for the Dependabot Changelog Helper.

version

Default	Description
UNRELEASED	The version to find in the changelog to add Dependabot entries to.

If the version is not found then an unreleased version - matching the pattern /^## [(unreleased|Unreleased|UNRELEASED)] - is used.

Many changelogs default to keeping an released version at the top of the changelog. This is a way to incrementally build a version over time and only release a version once the right changes have been accounted for.

⚠️ Warning For the action to work you must have either set a version or have an unreleased version in your changelog.

changeLogPath

Default	Description
./CHANGELOG.md	The path to the changelog file to add Dependabot entries to.

activationLabel

Default	Description
dependabot	DEPRECATED! Please use the activationLabels input below. The label to indicate that the action should run.

If both activationLabel and activationLabels inputs are provided, all labels between the two inputs are required for the action to run.

activationLabels

Default	Description
''	The labels to indicate that the action should run. All of the labels must be present in order for the action to run.

Note: by default this is currently set to empty. In a future release (v4.0.0), it will have the default of dependabot and replace the activationLabel input.

entryPrefix

Default	Description
Bump	The starting word of a dependency bump entry line. Currently only supports single word prefixes.

If a previous entry was written with a different entry (Bump vs Bumps), the entry will still get updated for updates within the same version as long as the prefix is a single word.

sectionHeader

Default	Description
Dependencies	The name of section to add Dependabot entries to.

If sectionHeader is not provided, the action will look for a section header matching the pattern /^### [(Dependencies|DEPENDENCIES)].

sort

Default	Description
none	Whether to apply any sorting to added entries. Current values include none (no sorting, append only) and alpha (sorts entries based on the alphabetical ordering of the package name)