release-note-generation

Release Note Generation Skill

Generate professional PowerToys release notes by collecting merged PRs, summarizing each PR with the local CLI agent, grouping by label, and producing user-facing summaries. Stable and preview releases share the same PR metadata, attribution, grouping, and formatting rules.

Output Directory

All generated artifacts are placed under Generated Files/ReleaseNotes/ at the repository root (gitignored).

Generated Files/ReleaseNotes/
├── milestone_prs.json           # Raw PR data from GitHub
├── sorted_prs.csv               # Sorted PR list with Copilot summaries
├── prs_with_milestone.csv       # Milestone assignment tracking
├── grouped_csv/                 # PRs grouped by label (one CSV per label)
├── grouped_md/                  # Generated markdown summaries per label
└── v{VERSION}-release-notes.md  # Final consolidated release notes

Preview-release runs use an isolated subdirectory:

Generated Files/ReleaseNotes/preview-<buildId>/
├── release-context.json
├── delta-commits.json
├── delta-prs.json
├── removed-prs.json
├── unattributed-commits.json
├── MemberList.md
├── milestone_prs.json
├── sorted_prs.csv
├── release-notes.md
├── hashes.md
├── release-manifest.json        # Local audit artifact; never uploaded
├── assets-manifest.json         # Local asset inventory; never uploaded
└── final-review.md

When to Use This Skill

• Generate release notes for a milestone
• Summarize PRs merged in a release
• Generate per-PR review summaries locally for release-notes copy
• Assign milestones to PRs missing them
• Collect PRs between two commits/tags
• Update README.md for a new version
• Prepare GitHub release assets (download installers/symbols + compute hashes)
• Prepare a complete draft preview release from an ADO build URL or build ID
• Compare preview contents across main and stable branch transitions

Prerequisites

• GitHub CLI (gh) installed and authenticated — The collection script uses gh pr view and gh api graphql to fetch PR metadata and co-author information. Run gh auth status to verify; if not logged in, run gh auth login first. See Step 1.0.0 for details.
• MCP Server: github-mcp-server installed (used to fetch PR diffs/files for the local-agent review step)
• For preview releases and prepare-release-assets.ps1: Azure CLI authenticated against the Microsoft tenant (az login) with the azure-devops extension; access to the microsoft/Dart ADO project

Required Variables

For a stable release, confirm {{ReleaseVersion}} with the user before starting. For a preview release, do not request a version: derive it from the candidate ADO build.

Variable	Description	Example
{{ReleaseVersion}}	Target release version	0.98

Preview mode instead requires one ADO build URL or numeric build ID. It derives the version, source commit, branch, and previous release without asking the user.

Scenario routing

Read the scenario index, then follow only the selected scenario:

• Stable release for milestone- or version-based release notes.
• Preview release for an autonomous ADO-build-to-draft workflow.

Workflow Overview

┌────────────────────────────────┐
│ 1.0 Verify gh auth + MemberList │
└────────────────────────────────┘
              ↓
┌────────────────────────────────┐
│ 1.1 Collect PRs (stable range) │
└────────────────────────────────┘
              ↓
┌────────────────────────────────┐
│ 1.2 Assign Milestones           │
└────────────────────────────────┘
              ↓
┌────────────────────────────────┐
│ 2.1–2.4 Label PRs (auto+human)  │
└────────────────────────────────┘
              ↓
┌────────────────────────────────┐
│ 3.1 Local-agent PR summaries    │
│ (writes CopilotSummary)         │
└────────────────────────────────┘
              ↓
┌────────────────────────────────┐
│ 3.2 (Optional) Refresh PR data  │
└────────────────────────────────┘
              ↓
┌────────────────────────────────┐
│ 3.3 Group by label              │
│ (grouped_csv)                   │
└────────────────────────────────┘
              ↓
┌────────────────────────────────┐
│ 4.1 Summarize (grouped_md)      │
└────────────────────────────────┘
              ↓
┌────────────────────────────────┐
│ 4.2 Final notes (v{VERSION}.md) │
└────────────────────────────────┘

Step	Action	Details
1.0	Verify prerequisites	gh auth status must pass; generate MemberList.md
1.1	Collect PRs	From previous release tag on stable branch → sorted_prs.csv
1.2	Assign Milestones	Ensure all PRs have correct milestone
2.1–2.4	Label PRs	Auto-suggest + human label low-confidence
3.1–3.3	Reviews & Grouping	Local agent summarizes each PR diff into CopilotSummary → (optional refresh) → group by label
4.1–4.2	Summaries & Final	Generate grouped summaries, then consolidate

Detailed workflow docs

Do not read all steps at once—only read the step you are executing.

• Step 1: Collection & Milestones
• Step 2: Labeling PRs
• Step 3: Reviews & Grouping
• Step 4: Summarization

Available Scripts

Script	Purpose
dump-prs-since-commit.ps1	Fetch PRs between commits/tags
group-prs-by-label.ps1	Group PRs into CSVs
collect-or-apply-milestones.ps1	Assign milestones
diff_prs.ps1	Incremental PR diff
prepare-release-assets.ps1	Download installers + symbols from an ADO build, compute SHA256, emit the "Installer Hashes" markdown table for the GitHub release page
get-release-build-metadata.ps1	Resolve and validate the candidate build identity, version, channel, intent, and source commit
get-previous-published-release.ps1	Select the latest published stable or preview release that predates the candidate queue time
get-preview-release-delta.ps1	Calculate semantic added/removed PRs between exact release commits
collect-pr-metadata.ps1	Normalize GitHub metadata for an explicit set of PR numbers
new-preview-release-manifest.ps1	Create the auditable build, baseline, and semantic-delta release manifest
upsert-draft-preview-release.ps1	Create or update a draft prerelease without exposing a publish operation
verify-draft-preview-release.ps1	Verify draft flags, target commit, managed body, and uploaded assets

References

• Sample Output - Example summary formatting
• Detailed Instructions - Legacy full documentation

Conventions

• Terminal usage: Disabled by default; only run scripts when user explicitly requests
• Preview automation: An explicit request to prepare a preview release, or invocation by the Prepare Preview Release agent, authorizes the canonical preview scripts
• Preview tags: Use $context.tag, containing only v and the first three numeric version components (for example, build 0.102.2991.0 maps to tag v0.102.2991). Do not append .0 or -preview. Keep $context.version, installer filenames, and asset versions unchanged, and pass -ReleaseTag $context.tag when preparing asset download links.
• Release titles: Use Release <tag> for a stable release, Release preview <tag> for a prerelease built from stable, and Development preview <tag> for a prerelease built from main. Use the requested GitHub release type and the build's sourceBranch, not its original intent/channel. Pass -SourceBranch $context.sourceBranch to preview draft creation and verification; previews remain prereleases regardless of branch.
• Preview manifests: Keep release-manifest.json and assets-manifest.json in the local audit package; do not upload either file as a GitHub release asset
• Preview note layout: Place the Installer Hashes section immediately after the title and short public introduction, before Highlights and all change sections
• Batch generation: Generate ALL grouped_md files in one pass, then human reviews
• PR order: Preserve order from sorted_prs.csv in all outputs
• Label filtering: Keeps Product-*, Area-*, GitHub*, *Plugin, Issue-*

Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
gh command not found	Install GitHub CLI and add to PATH
No PRs returned	Verify milestone title matches exactly
Empty CopilotSummary for many PRs	Run Step 3.1 (local-agent summaries). Do not use mcp_github_request_copilot_review from a CLI/coding agent — the GitHub API rejects bot-initiated review requests, so the column will stay empty.
Many unlabeled PRs	Return to labeling step before grouping
prepare-release-assets.ps1 fails with "Failed to acquire ADO access token"	Run az login and ensure you have access to the microsoft/Dart ADO project
Candidate has no release-metadata.json	The metadata resolver uses pipeline-log fallback; ambiguous or conflicting values stop the run
First preview after switching branches has unexpected changes	Review removed-prs.json and unattributed-commits.json; see preview delta resolution