CLI

The conventional-changelog-writer binary renders a stream of already-parsed commits (as JSON) into a changelog on stdout. It’s a thin wrapper over the JS API — you supply the commits, a context, and options.

conventional-changelog-writer <path> [<path> ...]
cat commits.ldjson | conventional-changelog-writer

Options

Flag	Description
`-c, --context <path>`	Path to a JSON file of changelog writer context variables (version, repository, …).
`-o, --options <path>`	Path to a file exporting the Changelog Writer options object. `.json` is parsed; any other extension is imported and its default export is used.

Providing commits

Commits are read as JSON, either from stdin (a stream of newline-delimited JSON objects) or from file arguments (each file parsed as JSON):

# From stdin
cat commits.ldjson | conventional-changelog-writer

# From files
conventional-changelog-writer commit-1.json commit-2.json

Each commit is an object as produced by conventional-commits-parser, so the usual shape is a pipeline that feeds parsed commits into the writer.

Example

Given a file of parsed commits and a context:

{ "type": "feat", "scope": "api", "subject": "add async write() generator", "header": "feat(api): add async write() generator", "hash": "0f7e2c1a9d3e4b5c6f7089abcdef0123456789ab", "notes": [], "references": [] }
{ "type": "fix", "scope": "cli", "subject": "resolve config path relative to cwd", "header": "fix(cli): resolve config path relative to cwd", "hash": "a3b9d8472e1f0c9b8a7d6e5f4c3b2a1908f7e6d5", "notes": [], "references": [] }

{
  "version": "1.2.0",
  "repoUrl": "https://github.com/acme/app"
}

Rendering with just the context groups commits by their raw type (the unstyled default):

cat commits.ldjson | conventional-changelog-writer -c context.json

## 1.2.0 (2026-07-01)

### feat

* feat(api): add async write() generator ([0f7e2c1](https://github.com/acme/app/commits/0f7e2c1))

### fix

* fix(cli): resolve config path relative to cwd ([a3b9d84](https://github.com/acme/app/commits/a3b9d84))

To get formatted sections, point --options at a file that exports a preset’s writer options:

import createPreset from 'conventional-changelog-conventionalcommits'

export default createPreset().writer

cat commits.ldjson | conventional-changelog-writer -c context.json -o writer.mjs

## 1.2.0 (2026-07-01)

### Features

* **api:** add async write() generator ([0f7e2c1](https://github.com/acme/app/commit/0f7e2c1a9d3e4b5c6f7089abcdef0123456789ab))

### Bug Fixes

* **cli:** resolve config path relative to cwd ([a3b9d84](https://github.com/acme/app/commit/a3b9d8472e1f0c9b8a7d6e5f4c3b2a1908f7e6d5))