Release Notes

Automated release notes generation tooling for PCS Core.

Tools

generate_pr_release_notes.rb

Generates release notes for a single pull request. Loads prompt templates from Confluence for consistent formatting across PR and deployment release notes. Designed to run in GitHub Actions CI with no external gem dependencies (Ruby stdlib only).

Used by the GitHub Actions workflow in pcs_core to generate, approve, and gate merging of PRs based on reviewed release notes.

Usage:

ruby generate_pr_release_notes.rb --pr 123 --base origin/main --head pr_head --verbose

Flag	Required	Description
--pr NUMBER	Yes	Pull request number
--base REF	Yes	Base git reference (e.g., origin/main)
--head REF	Yes	Head git reference (e.g., pr_head)
--verbose	No	Print progress logs to stderr

generate_release_notes.rb

Generates deployment-level release notes by comparing two git references (e.g., production vs main). Publishes structured summaries to Confluence with LLM-generated sections.

Usage:

ruby generate_release_notes.rb --base production --compare main --verbose

Flag	Required	Description
--base REF	No	Base reference (default: production)
--compare REF	No	Compare reference (default: main)
--output DIR	No	Output directory (default: .)
--verbose	No	Verbose output

confluence_client.rb

Helper class for Confluence API interactions. Used by generate_release_notes.rb to fetch prompt configuration and publish pages.

Environment Variables

All environment variables use the RN_ prefix to avoid conflicts with other tools.

Required (PR release notes)

Variable	Description
RN_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	Anthropic API key for Claude LLM
RN_CONFLUENCE_BASE_URL	Confluence instance URL (for loading prompt templates)
RN_ATLASSIAN_API_TOKEN	Atlassian API token (for Confluence)
RN_JIRA_EMAIL	Atlassian account email

Required (deployment release notes)

Variable	Description
RN_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	Anthropic API key for Claude LLM
RN_JIRA_BASE_URL	Jira instance URL (e.g., https://yourcompany.atlassian.net)
RN_JIRA_CLOUD_ID	Atlassian Cloud ID
RN_JIRA_EMAIL	Atlassian account email
RN_ATLASSIAN_API_TOKEN	Atlassian API token (Jira and Confluence)
RN_CONFLUENCE_BASE_URL	Confluence instance URL

Optional

Variable	Description	Default
RN_GH_ACCESS_TOKEN	GitHub token for fetching PR details	—
RN_ANTHROPIC_MODEL	Claude model to use	claude-haiku-4-5

GitHub Actions Integration

The pcs_core repository contains a workflow (.github/workflows/release-notes.yml) that uses this repo via slash commands on PRs:

Command	Effect
/release-notes-generate	Generates release notes, posts as PR comment, sets release-notes-approved status to pending
/release-notes-approve	Sets commit status to success (unblocks merge)
/release-notes-revoke	Sets commit status back to pending (re-blocks merge)

Setup

1. Add required secrets to the pcs_core repository (see environment variables above).
2. Add a branch protection rule on main requiring the release-notes-approved status check to pass.