Changelogs

Notra generates changelogs from your GitHub pull requests, commits, and releases, and optionally from Linear issues. Each changelog is created as a draft post that you review, refine with the content agent, and publish when ready. Changelogs live in the Studio content pipeline. In the dashboard, switch the sidebar to Studio and open Content.

How It Works

Connect a source

Install the Notra GitHub app on the repositories you want to cover. You can also connect Linear so issues show up as source material. See GitHub and Linear.

Create on demand or automate

Click New post on the Content page to generate a changelog right now, or set up a schedule or an event trigger so Notra generates one for you. See Scheduled Automation and Event-Based Automation.

Notra reads your activity

The changelog agent pulls the activity inside the lookback window, filters out work that is only relevant internally, and groups the rest by impact and category.

Review and publish

The changelog appears as a draft in a collection. Open it, edit it directly or ask the content agent for changes, then click Publish.

Creating a Changelog Manually

Open the create dialog

Go to Content and click New post.

Formats

Pick Changelog entry. You can select several formats at once (for example a changelog plus a LinkedIn post) and Notra generates all of them from the same activity. Choose a lookback window and toggle which data points to include: Pull Requests, Commits, and Releases.

Activity

Pick the repositories and Linear integrations to draw from. Notra previews the releases, pull requests, commits, and issues in the window and lets you deselect anything you do not want mentioned. You can search by title, author, or label.

Identity

Choose which brand identity should write the post. The posts are generated into a new collection, and each post opens in the editor when it is ready.

Changelog Structure

Every generated changelog follows the same shape.

Summary

A single paragraph directly under the title. The agent targets 120 to 180 words and goes shorter when there is less to cover.

Highlights

Up to five changes, chosen by importance in this order: security, breaking changes, major features, reliability fixes, performance. If there are fewer than five genuinely high-impact changes, the list is shorter. It is never padded.

Low-signal work such as small refactors, dependency bumps, wording tweaks, and test-only changes is excluded from Highlights, and is left out of the changelog entirely unless it has a clear effect on your audience.

More Updates

Every remaining change appears exactly once as a bullet under one of these categories:

Security
Features & Enhancements
Bug Fixes
Performance Improvements
Infrastructure
Internal Changes
Testing
Documentation

When a change fits several categories, it is filed under the first match in this order: Security, Bug Fixes, Features & Enhancements, Performance Improvements, Infrastructure, Internal Changes, Testing, Documentation.

Lookback Windows

The lookback window controls how far back Notra looks for activity when it generates a changelog on demand or on a schedule.

Window	Description	Best For
`current_day`	Today’s changes only	Real-time daily updates
`yesterday`	Previous day’s activity	Morning recaps
`last_7_days`	Past week (default)	Weekly team updates
`last_14_days`	Past two weeks	Bi-weekly releases
`last_30_days`	Past month	Monthly summaries

Event triggers do not use a lookback window. For a GitHub release event, Notra compares the new release with the previous one and uses that range.

Tone

The changelog is written in the tone profile of the brand identity you pick: Conversational, Professional, Casual, or Formal. Set it under Studio > Brand Identity, together with your target audience and custom instructions. See Brand Voice.

Automation Settings

Schedules and event triggers that produce changelogs accept these options. The same fields are available in the dashboard and in the public API (POST /v1/schedules and POST /v1/event-triggers). Scheduled generation

{
  "name": "Weekly changelog",
  "sourceType": "cron",
  "sourceConfig": {
    "cron": { "frequency": "weekly", "hour": 9, "minute": 0, "dayOfWeek": 1 }
  },
  "targets": { "repositoryIds": ["repo_123"] },
  "outputType": "changelog",
  "outputConfig": { "brandVoiceId": "bv_123" },
  "lookbackWindow": "last_7_days",
  "enabled": true,
  "autoPublish": false
}

frequency is daily, weekly (requires dayOfWeek, 0 to 6), or monthly (requires dayOfMonth, 1 to 31). hour is 0 to 23 and minute is 0 to 59. Event-based generation

{
  "sourceType": "github_webhook",
  "sourceConfig": { "eventTypes": ["release"], "includePreReleases": true },
  "targets": { "repositoryIds": ["repo_123"] },
  "outputType": "changelog",
  "outputConfig": { "brandVoiceId": "bv_123" },
  "enabled": true,
  "autoPublish": false
}

eventTypes accepts release and push.

Auto-publish

Changelogs and blog posts support Auto-publish. When it is on, generated posts are saved with the published status immediately instead of as drafts. Social posts and images are always saved as drafts.

Publishing

Clicking Publish in the editor (or enabling auto-publish) sets the post status to published. It does not push the post anywhere by itself. Published posts are what your publishing destinations pick up:

Framer: the Notra plugin imports your posts into a Framer site. See Framer.
Your own site or CMS: fetch posts from the API with GET /v1/posts?status=published and render them however you like. See API Getting Started.
Manual: copy the Markdown from the editor.

Move to draft takes a published post back to draft.

Editing with the Content Agent

Every post has a content agent in the right-hand panel. Select text in the editor to give the agent context, then ask for changes such as:

“Expand the summary to mention the pricing change”
“Simplify the Highlights for a non-technical audience”
“Move the caching change into Performance Improvements”

The agent edits the post in place and you can review the diff before it is saved.

Best Practices

Write Meaningful PR Titles and Descriptions

Notra uses your PR titles and descriptions as source material. Clear, descriptive PRs lead to better changelogs. Good PR Title
Add email verification flow with expiration handling Poor PR Title
Fix bug

Match the Lookback Window to Your Release Cadence

Ship daily? Use yesterday or current_day
Weekly releases? Use last_7_days
Monthly updates? Use last_30_days

Review Before Publishing

Changelogs are drafts until you publish them. Use the review to:

Verify technical accuracy
Add context that GitHub activity does not capture
Adjust the Highlights for your audience

Example Changelog

# Product Updates - Week of March 2, 2026

This week brought significant improvements to developer experience and
reliability. We shipped enhanced error handling for cached components,
improved email verification flows, and optimized authentication state
management. The team also focused on security hardening with rotated
webhook secret handling and cross-browser UI consistency improvements.

## Highlights

### Cache component support with actionable error guidance
Runtime guardrails now catch unsupported auth calls in cached contexts
and provide clear migration guidance with the correct usage pattern.

### Email link verification for signup flows
Signup verification now supports secure email-link completion flows
with clear status handling for expiration and mismatch cases.

## More Updates

### Security
- **Rotated webhook signing secret handling** [#131](https://github.com/org/repo/pull/131) -
  Improves secret lifecycle controls. (Author: [@lee](https://github.com/lee/))

### Bug Fixes
- **Fixed null-state crash in trigger editor** [#140](https://github.com/org/repo/pull/140) -
  Prevents editor crashes for partially configured triggers. (Author: [@sam](https://github.com/sam/))

### Features & Enhancements
- **Added repository filter presets** [#142](https://github.com/org/repo/pull/142) -
  Speeds up common workflow setup. (Author: [@alex](https://github.com/alex/))

Common Issues

Changelog Is Too Short or Missing Expected Changes

Cause: The lookback window does not cover the relevant timeframe, the activity was deselected in the Activity step, or the PRs lack detail. Solution:

Check the lookback window against when the work was merged
Make sure the PRs, commits, or releases were selected in the Activity step
Add descriptive titles and descriptions to your PRs

Nothing Was Generated

Cause: Every plan includes a monthly quota of long-form posts (changelogs and blog posts count against it). When the quota is used up, Notra falls back to AI credits, and if none are available the generation is blocked. Solution: Check Settings > Billing & Usage > Usage, and top up credits under Settings > Credits or upgrade the plan. See Billing & Plans.

Changes from Private Repositories Not Appearing

Cause: The GitHub app is not installed on the repository, or the repository is disabled in the integration. Solution:

Navigate to Integrations > GitHub
Add the repository, or enable it if it is already listed
Re-run the generation

See Brand Voice to control how changelogs are written and which changes get emphasised.

Get Started

Core Concepts

GEO

Integrations

Developer Tools

Automation

Content Types

Organization

How It Works

Creating a Changelog Manually

Changelog Structure

Summary

Highlights

More Updates

Lookback Windows

Tone

Automation Settings

Auto-publish

Publishing

Editing with the Content Agent

Best Practices

Write Meaningful PR Titles and Descriptions

Match the Lookback Window to Your Release Cadence

Review Before Publishing

Example Changelog

Common Issues

Changelog Is Too Short or Missing Expected Changes

Nothing Was Generated

Changes from Private Repositories Not Appearing

​How It Works

​Creating a Changelog Manually

​Changelog Structure

​Summary

​Highlights

​More Updates

​Lookback Windows

​Tone

​Automation Settings

​Auto-publish

​Publishing

​Editing with the Content Agent

​Best Practices

​Write Meaningful PR Titles and Descriptions

​Match the Lookback Window to Your Release Cadence

​Review Before Publishing

​Example Changelog

​Common Issues

​Changelog Is Too Short or Missing Expected Changes

​Nothing Was Generated

​Changes from Private Repositories Not Appearing

How It Works

Creating a Changelog Manually

Changelog Structure

Summary

Highlights

More Updates

Lookback Windows

Tone

Automation Settings

Auto-publish

Publishing

Editing with the Content Agent

Best Practices

Write Meaningful PR Titles and Descriptions

Match the Lookback Window to Your Release Cadence

Review Before Publishing

Example Changelog

Common Issues

Changelog Is Too Short or Missing Expected Changes

Nothing Was Generated

Changes from Private Repositories Not Appearing