Developer Changelog Glossary
Definitions of the terms developer teams use when talking about changelogs, release notes, and shipping software.
Changelog Fundamentals
- Changelog The running log of changes a product ships over time, organized by release.
- Changelog vs Release Notes Changelog = the running log of all changes; release notes = the subset for a specific version.
- Release Notes The per-release subset of a changelog, written for the audience consuming a specific version.
Release Engineering
- Breaking Change A change that requires consumers to update their code, config, or workflow to keep working.
- Canary Release A deployment pattern that rolls a new version to a small subset of users first and expands only if metrics hold.
- Release Train A fixed-cadence release model where the schedule never slips and features that aren't ready wait for the next train.