feat: add generate from latest tag

[pocesar]

This allows DETACHED HEAD tags to properly generate the RELEASE notes.
Otherwise it will always try to generate the full release notes from multiple tags

[ovy9086]

this looks good, and would love this feature 👀

[sparadiso]

Is there a voting mechanism here? 👍 would also love this feature.

[ovy9086]

for now I've ended up using https://github.com/mikepenz/release-changelog-builder-action to generate the proper changelogs. it's a really nice action.

this is how my steps looks like if somebody just wants to copy paste it and don't spend too much time on it 😂

jobs:
    deploy:
        name: Create release

        runs-on: ubuntu-latest

        permissions:
            contents: write
            deployments: write
            pull-requests: read

        steps:
            - name: 'Build Changelog'
              id: build_changelog
              uses: mikepenz/release-changelog-builder-action@v4
              with:
                  token: '${{ github.token }}'

            - name: Create GitHub release
              uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v1
              with:
                  body: ${{steps.build_changelog.outputs.changelog}}

[caquino]

@softprops is this a feature that you intend to add? As there is a considerable amount of 👍 on the issue for this feature I'm curious if we should wait or to find a workaround.

[chenrui333]

@pocesar can you fix the merge conflict for the PR, I can include this feature for the next release.

[fdventura]

@softprops could we get this merged, since it appears to bring great value to all users with little to none added effort? 🙏🏼

[chenrui333]

@fdventura there is merge conflict needs to be addressed first.

[melyux]

Paging @pocesar

[pocesar]

my PR is 81 commits behind main, maybe it won't be a simple rebase 😬

[jbrazio]

@pocesar any follow-up ? 🚀

[louwers]

This would be great for us since we use a monorepo with many different types of releases.

[chenrui333]

I think this PR is ready for merge, can someone on this thread test out this commit, 898f81b and see if it works for you? Thanks!

[chenrui333]

I think this PR is ready for merge, can someone on this thread test out this commit, 898f81b and see if it works for you? Thanks!

4577bf1 is the latest commit

[chenrui333]

(note to myself, need to redo the latest merge master commit again)

[bencoveney]

I have tested with commit 4577br1 and see the following:

Configuration from logs:

2025-06-19T11:32:36.8599120Z with:
2025-06-19T11:32:36.8599333Z   name: Staging 2025_06_19-11_32_36
2025-06-19T11:32:36.8599592Z   tag_name: stage-2025_06_19-11_32_36
2025-06-19T11:32:36.8609231Z   previous_tag: prod-25_06_03-13_24_55
2025-06-19T11:32:36.8609791Z   target_commitish: fccd17df11497b54721dd7922b2806da18c40ca7
2025-06-19T11:32:36.8610191Z   generate_release_notes: true
2025-06-19T11:32:36.8610620Z   prerelease: true
2025-06-19T11:32:36.8610860Z   make_latest: false
2025-06-19T11:32:36.8611087Z   overwrite_files: true
2025-06-19T11:32:36.8611639Z   token: ***

I would expect the release notes to be generated for this release, similar to how they are generated through the UI (e.g. they begin with ## What's Changed\n* ).

Instead, on the release notes of the release, I see:

stage-2025_06_19-11_32_36

Merge pull request #554 from [pull request name removed]…

(This is the full content, 3 lines ending with …)

When I generate the release notes for an equivalent release from github UI, they generate correctly (e.g. they begin with ## What's Changed\n* ). The Github UI is sending the following request to build them:

https://github.com/[org]/[repository]/releases/notes?commitish=fccd17df11497b54721dd7922b2806da18c40ca7^&tag_name=stage-2025_06_19-11_32_36^&previous_tag_name=prod-25_06_03-13_24_55

I do not have a release.yml file, but I don't think that's required for generation to work.

[caquino]

@chenrui333, is there anything we can do to get this merged? It looks like the conversation sometimes gets lost, and then we have conflicts, no one's fault, just a timing problem.

To get this merged, is resolving the conflicts and including test evidence in the PR enough?

If that is the case, I'm happy to fork and redo this PR in my repo and provide a clean, tested PR.

I just want to align before proceeding, so we don't spend time working on it and end up in the backlog.

Appreciate any help!