rpm-changelog

Gitea composite action that generates an rpm %changelog entry from git history and prepends it to a spec file. Designed to run during release CI so the changelog never drifts out of sync with the code.

Why use this

Hand-maintained rpm %changelog sections drift. The day-of-week gets stale, the version lags behind tags, and the description stops matching what actually changed. This action:

• Finds the previous release tag (default pattern v*).
• Collects commits between that tag and HEAD via git log.
• Filters out noise (bump-version bot commits, merge commits — both configurable).
• Writes a fresh %changelog entry with today's date, the release author, and the new version.
• Prepends it to the spec file's existing %changelog section.

Because the date is generated at build time, rpmbuild will never warn about bogus weekdays and the entry always reflects what changed since the last release.

Requirements

When collecting commits from the current repo (default), the consumer workflow must check out with full git history:

- uses: actions/checkout@v4
  with:
    fetch-depth: 0

Without this, git describe can't see prior tags and the entry will default to "No user-visible changes" on every release.

When using repo-url, the action handles cloning automatically. When using source-dir, ensure the checkout at that path has full history (fetch-depth: 0).

Inputs

Input	Required	Default	Description
spec	yes	—	Path to the rpm spec file to update.
version	yes	—	Version string for the new entry (without release suffix), e.g. 0.1.10.
release	no	1	Release suffix to append after the version.
author	no	Gitea Actions <[email protected]>	Name and email for the entry.
tag-pattern	no	v*	Glob pattern for release tags, used to locate the previous release.
exclude-patterns	no	(see below)	Newline-separated grep -E patterns to drop from the generated log.
source-dir	no	—	Path to a local git checkout to collect commits from instead of $PWD.
repo-url	no	—	URL of an external repo to clone (bare) for commit history.

Default exclude-patterns:

^- chore: bump version
^- Merge

Usage

jobs:
  srpm:
    runs-on: fedora
    if: startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/v')
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0

      - name: Determine version
        id: version
        run: echo "VERSION=${GITHUB_REF#refs/tags/v}" >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"

      - name: Stamp version in spec
        run: sed -i "s/^Version:.*/Version:        ${{ steps.version.outputs.VERSION }}/" mypackage.spec

      - name: Update changelog
        uses: https://git.lair.cafe/actions/rpm-changelog@v1
        with:
          spec: mypackage.spec
          version: ${{ steps.version.outputs.VERSION }}

      - name: Build SRPM
        run: rpmbuild -bs mypackage.spec --define "_sourcedir $(pwd)"

Note the fully-qualified URL in uses: — the Gitea instance's DEFAULT_ACTIONS_URL points at github.com, so internal actions must be referenced by absolute URL.

Packaging repo that tracks an upstream source

When your internal repo only contains rpm packaging (spec file, patches, etc.) and the actual source lives in an external git repository, use repo-url to pull commit history from upstream:

jobs:
  srpm:
    runs-on: fedora
    if: startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/v')
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Determine version
        id: version
        run: echo "VERSION=${GITHUB_REF#refs/tags/v}" >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"

      - name: Update changelog from upstream
        uses: https://git.lair.cafe/actions/rpm-changelog@v1
        with:
          spec: mypackage.spec
          version: ${{ steps.version.outputs.VERSION }}
          repo-url: https://github.com/upstream-org/upstream-repo.git

Alternatively, if your workflow already clones the upstream source (e.g. to build a tarball), point source-dir at the existing checkout to avoid cloning twice:

      - name: Clone upstream source
        run: git clone https://github.com/upstream-org/upstream-repo.git /tmp/upstream

      - name: Update changelog from local clone
        uses: https://git.lair.cafe/actions/rpm-changelog@v1
        with:
          spec: mypackage.spec
          version: ${{ steps.version.outputs.VERSION }}
          source-dir: /tmp/upstream

If both source-dir and repo-url are set, source-dir wins. repo-url clones are bare with --filter=blob:none to minimise bandwidth — only commit/tag metadata is fetched.

Versioning

Pin to a major version tag (@v1) for automatic patch/minor updates. Pin to an exact tag (@v1.0.2) to freeze.

Behaviour notes

• If no previous tag matching tag-pattern exists (first release), the entry body becomes - No user-visible changes.
• If the filter removes every commit (e.g. release contained only bump-version chores), body is - No user-visible changes.
• The spec file must already contain a %changelog line — the action will error out rather than mangle an unmarked file.
• The date uses UTC (date -u) so runners in different timezones produce deterministic output.