open-consul/docs/contributing/add-a-changelog-entry.md

Adding a Changelog Entry

Any change that a Consul user might need to know about should have a changelog entry.

What doesn't need a changelog entry?

• Docs changes
• Typos fixes, unless they are in a public-facing API
• Code changes we are certain no Consul users will need to know about

To include a changelog entry in a PR, commit a text file named .changelog/<PR#>.txt, where <PR#> is the number associated with the open PR in Github. The text file should describe the changes in the following format:

```release-note:<change type>
<code area>: <brief description of the improvement you made here>
```

Valid values for <change type> include:

• feature: for the addition of a new feature
• improvement: for an improvement (not a bug fix) to an existing feature
• bug: for a bug fix
• security: for any Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) resolutions
• breaking-change: for any change that is not fully backwards-compatible
• deprecation: for functionality which is now marked for removal in a future release

<code area> is meant to categorize the functionality affected by the change. Some common values are:

• checks: related to node or service health checks
• cli: related to the command-line interface and its commands
• config: related to configuration changes (e.g., adding a new config option)
• connect: catch-all for the Connect subsystem that provides service mesh functionality if no more specific <code area> applies
• http: related to the HTTP API interface and its endpoints
• dns: related to DNS functionality
• ui: any change related to the built-in Consul UI (website/ folder)

Look in the .changelog/ folder for examples of existing changelog entries.

If a PR deserves multiple changelog entries, just add multiple entries separated by a newline in the format described above to the .changelog/<PR#>.txt file.