Install git-cliff on Ubuntu 24.04

The git-cliff is a command line tool for generating changelogs from Git commit history. It automatically extracts relevant commit messages and formats them into a structured changelog. This helps developers maintain clear and consistent release notes with minimal effort. This tutorial explains how to install git-cliff on Ubuntu 24.04.

Prepare environment

Make sure Git is installed on your system. You can refer to a post on how to install it.

Install git-cliff

Get the latest release version of git-cliff from its official GitHub repository and store it in a variable:

GIT_CLIFF_VERSION=$(curl -s "https://api.github.com/repos/orhun/git-cliff/releases/latest" | grep -Po '"tag_name": "v\K[0-9.]+')

Download git-cliff using the previously retrieved version:

wget -qO git-cliff.tar.gz https://github.com/orhun/git-cliff/releases/latest/download/git-cliff-$GIT_CLIFF_VERSION-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz

Create a temporary directory and extract the contents of the tar.gz file into it:

mkdir git-cliff-temp

tar xf git-cliff.tar.gz --strip-components=1 -C git-cliff-temp

Move the git-cliff executable to the /usr/local/bin directory:

sudo mv git-cliff-temp/git-cliff /usr/local/bin

Verify the git-cliff version by executing the following command:

git cliff --version

Finally, delete the temporary directory and the downloaded file:

rm -rf git-cliff.tar.gz git-cliff-temp

Testing git-cliff

Clone the repository and navigate to it:

git clone https://github.com/orhun/git-cliff && cd git-cliff

Initialize git-cliff configuration:

git cliff --init

This generates a default cliff.toml configuration file. The config file defines how commits are parsed and formatted in the changelog. You can customize this file to change section headings, commit message patterns, output formats, etc.

Generate changelog of the latest tag:

git cliff --latest

This command generates a changelog for the most recent tag and prints output to the terminal. Output example:

# Changelog

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

## [2.8.0] - 2025-01-24

### 🚀 Features

- *(repo)* Allow running from sub directories (#975)
- *(monorepo)* Automatically set include-path for current directory
- *(config)* Discover the configuration file when run in a sub directory
...

Uninstall git-cliff

To remove git-cliff, simply delete its executable file:

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin/git-cliff