`nx release`: changelog of independent project include workspace changes about nx

[thdk]

@Badisi if your commit convention allows you to use other types than fix or feat you can configure your nx release command to ignore certain types of commits when the release command needs to determine the next version.

See the documentation here: https://nx.dev/recipes/nx-release/customize-conventional-commit-types

A change to non-projects files can always be affecting other projects. I believe this is a safe approach as it leaves it to the developer to use commit types such as chore or test to mark a commit to be 'hidden' in your changelog and not cause any version bump.

[Badisi]

@thdk, I'm using the default commit convention, nothing fancy here.

My real concern is that when using independent mode and projectChangelogs level, changelogs should only be scoped to a project level and not include any workspace changes.

And that's actually what the documentation says:

... they are generated for each project individually and only contain changes for that specific project ...

So in this particular scenario I completely disagree with you when you say that "a change to non-projects files can always be affecting other projects". The idea behind projectChangelogs is purposely to ignore any changes that was made outside of a project scope and only include what was made inside it.

As for commit types such as chore or test, I agree they can help 'hide' a commit but it's just a dirty solution here and does not completely solves the problem. To err is human, and you can't depend on a developer always remembering to use the correct commit types to ensure proper scoping or exclusion within a project.

[Badisi]

I also found that there is an inconsistency in the way that commits are filtered for independent projects.

• When resolving the next semver version, commits are filtered this way:
  

  nx/packages/nx/src/command-line/release/utils/shared.ts

  Lines 322 to 336 in 55197fb

  	/**
  	* The relevant commits are those that either:
  	* - touch project files which are contained within the list of projects directly
  	* - touch non-project files and the commit is not scoped
  	*/
  	return commits.filter((c) =>
  	c.affectedFiles.some(
  	(f) =>
  	filesInReleaseGroup.has(f) ||
  	(!c.scope &&
  	fileMap.nonProjectFiles.some(
  	(nonProjectFile) => nonProjectFile.file === f
  	))
  	)
  	);

• When generating changelog, commits are filtered that way:
  

  nx/packages/nx/src/command-line/release/changelog.ts

  Lines 498 to 500 in 963f753

  	const commitsForProject = allCommits.filter((c) =>
  	c.affectedFiles.find((f) => f.startsWith(project.data.root))
  	);

---

Even worse, when generating a changelog or github release, if useAutomaticFromRef is not set, commits that will be used for the generation are... ALL commits (cf.getCommits here).

This results in a changelog containing, for one individual project, every changes of every projects and even the workspace.

if (releaseGroup.projectsRelationship === 'independent') {
  ...
  if (!fromRef && useAutomaticFromRef) {
    const firstCommit = await getFirstGitCommit();
    const allCommits = await getCommits(firstCommit, toSHA);
    const commitsForProject = allCommits.filter((c) =>
      c.affectedFiles.find((f) => f.startsWith(project.data.root))
    );
    ...
  }
  ...
  if (!commits) {
    commits = await getCommits(fromRef, toSHA); // <--- here, all commits will be used for the changelog generation
  }
}

[christophsaile]

Hey, I have a similar issue in my project. I am using projectChangelogs but without independent release.
In the index.js of the changelog renderer I did the following changes to fix my issue:

diff --git a/release/changelog-renderer/index.js b/release/changelog-renderer/index.js
index ca7ef3c27ea5c76819a85947a002d952285fd467..390254908990c04bfb5eb73b3dda18570b006302 100644
--- a/release/changelog-renderer/index.js
+++ b/release/changelog-renderer/index.js
@@ -75,8 +75,8 @@ const defaultChangelogRenderer = async ({ projectGraph, changes, releaseVersion,
     }
     else {
         // project level changelog
-        const relevantChanges = changes.filter((c) => c.affectedProjects &&
-            (c.affectedProjects === '*' || c.affectedProjects.includes(project)));
+        // PATCH NOTE: removed the line === '*'. This way root level changes are not included in the project changelog.
+        const relevantChanges = changes.filter((c) => c.affectedProjects && c.affectedProjects.includes(project));
         // Generating for a named project, but that project has no relevant changes in the current set of commits, exit early
         if (relevantChanges.length === 0) {
             if (dependencyBumps?.length) {