[Feature Request] Replace manual CHANGELOG with automated solution

[andrross]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe

Original comment: #19594 (comment)

Since we start using the autogen AI workflows from infra side to generate release notes for every component,
I wonder if we still need the changelog.md?

Describe the solution you'd like

Use the new Gen AI-based solution for generating release notes to replace the manual CHANGELOG in this repo.

Related component

Other

Describe alternatives you've considered

Do nothing, keep the changelog

Additional context

To quote @cwperks: "I think that would be our single biggest improvement for engineering efficiency."

[andrross]

The CHANGELOG has been a divisive topic to say the least, but I think it's worth quoting the tenets from this isssue:

• Changelogs are for users, not project contributors nor machines. Not every commit is relevant to a user so not all commits are in the changelog.
• Changelog entries are peer reviewed and approved like any other part of a contribution.
• Changelogs list all significant unreleased changes.
• Changelog entries are editable after initial commit.
• Changelogs minimize maintainer work, are adopted
• Changelogs are trustworthy and up-to-date.

I think the big thing missing from the automated release notes tooling is the "trustworthy and up-to-date". Currently the CHANGELOG is (or at least strives to be) an accurate and up-to-date list of all significant pending changes that are on a branch but have not yet been released. Any solution that only generates release notes at release time will not have this property.

[peterzhuamazon]

My argument is commit msg and list, if managed properly, can also show the current progress.
People can also just compare previous release tags vs current HEAD, without concerning about missing an entry in changelog.md.

I personally wont worry too much about missing up-to-date list until release date, because even for my own open source adventure, I tend to check PR list, commit list, or release tabs more often than changelog.md, since people also use skip-changelog to skip that anyway.

Maybe a solution is to use AI autogen to only generate and update changelog.md, and maintainers can manually move changelog.md as a release note during release phase, to not miss anything in the process.

[andrross]

@peterzhuamazon Honestly my ideal solution would be to have a link in the README that would open a page that would render the release notes on-demand. That would let you preview the release notes at any point, allowing you to see what is unreleased, and also allow you to edit your release notes entry at any point (assuming you can edit a PR description of a merged PR that would change what gets put into the release notes).