feat(api): Add the ability to include commit authors and PR references to default-changelog-notes

[jamszh]

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Context:

Fixes #1716 🦕

This PR is a follow-up to #1717
We can probably close it as my PR is based off it.

Changes:

• Utilise the commitPartial attribute from BaseStrategyOptions
• Add commitPartialPath to the manifest config and friends
• Commit authors and PR reference links can be added to the commit entries for a release by providing a custom .release-please-commit-partial.hbs file.
  • You can find the template file here (we default to this template when no commitPartialPath is provided)

TESTING

I have done testing on this dummy repo.
https://github.com/jamszh/test-release-please

You can provide a path to a custom commit-partial.hbs file like this one.

./build/src/bin/release-please.js release-pr --token $GITHUB_TOKEN --repo-url jamszh/test-release-please --target-branch main --commit-partial-path .release-please-commit-partial.hbs 

Here is an example auto-release PR generated by the command above.

For testing, the $GITHUB_TOKEN is a fine grain token with access to the test-release-please repo. I used these permissions.

[JohnCampionJr]

This would be very nice to have! Another related thought, maybe a list of excluded authors? For example, I wouldn't want myself listed by every single commit I do.

[chingor13]

Sorry for the late review, but this is looking great!

One question -- is this opt-in? IMO, all the new features should not change existing behavior.

[jamszh]

This feature is entirely opt-in.

commitPartial already existed as as optional argument prior to this PR.
It was just never used.

release-please/src/factories/changelog-notes-factory.ts

Line 27 in cd0bd85

commitPartial?: string;

So now we provide a real value if commitPartialPath (newly added as part of this PR) is specified in the manifest file.

[jamszh]

Sorry for the late review, but this is looking great!

One question -- is this opt-in? IMO, all the new features should not change existing behavior.

Yep.
See: https://github.com/googleapis/release-please/pull/1938/files#r1322981745

[jamszh]

This would be very nice to have! Another related thought, maybe a list of excluded authors? For example, I wouldn't want myself listed by every single commit I do.

Yeah I can see this being annoying.
The exclusion list could work.

I was thinking we could also remove the @ from the author's user ID when building the notes.

Alternatively, I wonder if it is possible to supress the notifications for these Github mentions created by release-please.

[jxn-30]

What is the current state of this PR?
Would love to see this, especially in combination with the beforementioned exclude-list!

Thanks for your work!

[jamszh]

What is the current state of this PR? Would love to see this, especially in combination with the beforementioned exclude-list!

Thanks for your work!

I have updated the PR again. It should be ready for another review from @chingor13.
I'm thinking instead of an exclusion list, it might more sensible to add further customisation capabilities to this .hbs file.
Perhaps there is a way to list the authors at the PR level, rather than the commit level.

[chingor13]

This looks so close. I think we will want to pass the template string in the config, rather than making an extra GitHub API request to fetch the template from a file on the repository. The template contents should be small enough (generally a one-liner)

[jamszh]

This looks so close. I think we will want to pass the template string in the config, rather than making an extra GitHub API request to fetch the template from a file on the repository. The template contents should be small enough (generally a one-liner)

The example template I used is quite big.
https://github.com/jamszh/test-release-please/blob/main/.release-please-commit-partial.hbs

Though i'm not too sure how others will use it

Are you saying we should have the contents of the 'commit-partial.hbs' file as part of the config?
It doesn't feel like a one-liner to me, especially if users want something more customized (hence more complicated).

[andrew-field]

Would love to see this merged. Thanks for your work!

[Oudwins]

This would be amazing. Anything I can do to help push it over the edge?

[JustinElst]

This would be amazing!

[flying-sheep]

@chingor13 what’s holding this up?

[jamszh]

I've resolved the conflicts.

This PR has some overlap with #2628. Both introduce a way of attaching an author to a release note, however the solution provided by this PR is slightly more customisable (requires providing a commit-partial.hbs) and allows for structuring the entire note as opposed to simply appending a single author.

Regardless, I've ensured that the functionality introduced in #2628 is preserved. Both are opt-in.

I've re-tested - everything seems to be good.

Here is the PR with generated release notes with the update changes in this branch.

jamszh/test-release-please#5