Add 'hallmark add' command (or similar)

[ralphtheninja]

When building up a changelog from scratch for an existing project with already existing history it would be handy to be able to do e.g. hallmark add x.y.z which would prepend an empty section just like hallmark bump but with the given version number. You could also have hallmark add patch | minor | major.

Once the changelog has been built, then you'd start using hallmark bump from there.

[ralphtheninja]

Maybe even have a hallmark init command for getting started on a new changelog? Just a thought and maybe for another issue.

[vweevers]

To make this easier I'd first like to do #82 (so that we don't have to compute a diff url for the newly added release) and #81 (to simplify sorting).

I assume that if the version in hallmark add <version> is older than what's already in the changelog, we'd want to insert a release after/before the closest existing version. Which can be achieved simply by sorting the releases after insertion.

Not sure I fully understand the benefit of add <version> over bump <version>. What's the main difference? That add adds an empty release, while bump populates it with commits?

[vweevers]

Related, I've been wondering about the scope of hallmark. Is it a linter, or a changelog tool? We could fork hallmark into a separate tool for changelogs (the generated content would still follow the hallmark style, but potentially that could be configurable).

[ralphtheninja]

Not sure I fully understand the benefit of add <version> over bump <version>. What's the main difference? That add adds an empty release, while bump populates it with commits?

I was a bit confused there. For some reason I didn't use bump while adding new versions (copy pasting empty change groups from another file), but it obviously works fine to get all commits inserted and then remove/tweak them.

Maybe add should be insert instead? And it could be inserted at any point in the changelog as you suggested (good idea). Does that make sense?

[ralphtheninja]

Hmm. There's some issue while doing hallmark bump on changelogs back in time. E.g. I want to add a new release to the changelog, but it takes todays date instead of the date for the commit or tag that I'm writing the release for.

[vweevers]

Yeah, that's https://github.com/vweevers/remark-changelog/blob/873a75634d061d4e120510e16d2a0268861f1d84/index.js#L168

[vweevers]

I like insert :). It's more clearly the opposite of adding a new release. Eventually, bump and insert might just be aliases, but we'll see.

I think both these commands could use a --no-commits option so that they generate empty releases if desired.

[ralphtheninja]

I think both these commands could use a --no-commits option so that they generate empty releases if desired.

Sounds lovely!

[vweevers]

I want to make it a subcommand, for extensibility and to make it clear that it operates on the changelog. And just rename bump to add because having revisited the code, and combined with the --no-commits idea, I see no reason for two separate commands. Down the line, we could have the following commands (combined with #85).

Add new minor version or existing version to changelog:

hallmark cc add minor
hallmark cc add 4.2.0

Create a changelog from scratch, either full, without content or limiting versions:

hallmark cc init
hallmark cc init --no-commits
hallmark cc init --from 3.8.6 --to 4.2.0

[vweevers]

4.0.0