Free release notes generator

What are release notes?

Release notes are a short summary of what changed in a new version of a product: new features, improvements and fixes, written so the reader knows what they can do now. A release notes generator turns the raw list your team already has, such as commits or tickets, into that summary, so the notes ship with the release instead of a week later.

Good release notes tell customers why an update matters to them. Commit messages tell developers what code changed. The work is translating one into the other.

Release notes or changelog?

People use the words loosely. A useful split:

This tool works as a changelog generator too: generate notes for each release and add them to the top of your changelog page.

What to include in release notes

• Title with product and version: “Acme Analytics 3.2 release notes”.
• A one-line summary: the one or two changes most readers care about.
• New, Improved, Fixed: in that order, leaving out empty sections.
• Benefit-first bullets: what the user can do now, not what the code does.
• Breaking changes: exactly what someone has to do, called out clearly.
• Links: to the help article or video for anything that needs explaining.

A short release notes example

Three commits, “feat: export reports to CSV”, “fix: dashboard timezone off by one hour” and “chore: bump dependencies”, could become:

Acme Analytics 3.2
You can now take your reports anywhere, and dashboards show the right times.

New

• CSV export: download any report as a CSV file to open it in Excel or Google Sheets.

Fixed

• Dashboard times: charts now use your timezone correctly.

The dependency update is left out of the customer version, because users won’t notice it. The internal version keeps it.

How to prepare your changes for the generator

You don’t need to clean up your list first, but a few habits give better notes. Paste one change per line, whether it’s a commit message, a ticket title or a sentence. Keep conventional prefixes like “feat:” and “fix:” if you use them; they help sort changes into new and fixed. Add a word of context to cryptic items, for example “fix: export (CSV was empty for large reports)”. Fill in the product name and version so the title is ready to publish. Then run it twice if you need both versions: once for customers, once for the internal team.

Best practices for release notes

Write for the person using the product

“Reports load faster” beats “Optimized query planner”. Name the feature as it appears in the interface.

Lead with what matters most

Put the change most people will notice first. Small fixes can be one line each at the end.

Show the new feature

A screenshot or a short video of a new feature does more than a paragraph. Link the help article that explains it.

Publish on a schedule people can find

Keep every release on one changelog page, newest first, so customers and your support team always know where to look.

Common release notes mistakes

• Pasting the commit log as is, with ticket numbers and jargon.
• Hiding a breaking change in the middle of a list.
• Listing every internal change in customer notes.
• Promising dates or features that aren’t in the release.

The generator only includes changes from your list and won’t add dates you didn’t give it, but check each item before you publish.