conventional-changelog-visualdiffer

conventional-changelog visualdiffer preset.

Installation

Install conventional-changelog and this preset locally in the project where the changelog will be generated:

npm install --save-dev conventional-changelog \
/absolute/path/to/conventional-changelog-visualdiffer

Usage

npx conventional-changelog --stdout --infile /dev/null \
  -p visualdiffer -c context.json

--stdout writes the generated changelog to standard output. --infile /dev/null prevents the CLI from reading or creating its default CHANGELOG.md file.

Alternatively, install both packages globally and invoke the global executable directly:

npm install --global conventional-changelog \
/absolute/path/to/conventional-changelog-visualdiffer

conventional-changelog --stdout --infile /dev/null \
  -p visualdiffer -c context.json

Do not combine a globally installed preset with npx conventional-changelog: npx runs the CLI in an isolated temporary installation that cannot resolve global presets.

context.json

The context.json file defines repository metadata and controls how commit data is processed.

Field	Type	Required	Description	Example
host	string	✅	Identical to the host property used by conventional-changelog	"https://github.com"
owner	string	✅	Identical to the owner property used by conventional-changelog	"visualdiffer"
repository	string	✅	Identical to the repository property used by conventional-changelog	"visualdiffer"
appVersion	string	❌	Application version associated with the output, if not present the version property will be used	"1.2.3-alpha.5"
excludedTypes	string[]	❌	List of Conventional Commit types to exclude from the generated output	["chore", "ci", "build", "style"]

{
  "host": "https://github.com",
  "owner": "visualdiffer",
  "repository": "visualdiffer",
  "appVersion": "1.2.3-alpha05",
  "excludeTypes": [
    "chore",
    "ci",
    "build",
    "style"
  ]
}