Write release notes customers will read
Turn the engineering changelog into plain notes for customers.
Product · Software · When something happens · Updated
Works with
- Slack
SlackHow do you write release notes customers will read?
To write release notes customers will read, set a Loop in Maito that starts when you tag a release. It reads the merged pull requests since the last tag, picks the changes worth telling customers about, writes them in plain words, and flags changes that could surprise people. You get a draft in Slack.
How it's done today
Release notes are a list of ticket titles.
What Maito does
- Read what shipped
- Pick what users notice
- Write short plain notes
Example
Loop run: Release v2.31 tagged · 23 merged PRs
Draft release notes, v2.31 23 PRs merged; 4 are worth telling customers about. • Connect your data step in onboarding. New accounts now import data in the first session, so reports are never empty. • Bulk reassign. Change the owner of up to 100 projects at once from the project list. • Faster search. Results now show in under a second for workspaces with 10,000+ items. • CSV export column order changed. Columns now follow the order on screen. The catch: the last one was titled "refactor export" in the PR, but it changes CSV column order. Anyone with a script that reads columns by position will break. I'd call it out as a change, not a fix. Approve or tell me what to change.
@Maito Approved. Move the CSV change to the top and say what to do about it.
Moved it first, with a line on reading columns by name instead of position. Final version attached: release-notes-v2.31.pdf. Nothing has been sent to customers.
Maito (4:12 PM):
Draft release notes, v2.31
23 PRs merged; 4 are worth telling customers about.
• Connect your data step in onboarding. New accounts now import data in the first session, so reports are never empty.
• Bulk reassign. Change the owner of up to 100 projects at once from the project list.
• Faster search. Results now show in under a second for workspaces with 10,000+ items.
• CSV export column order changed. Columns now follow the order on screen.
The catch: the last one was titled "refactor export" in the PR, but it changes CSV column order. Anyone with a script that reads columns by position will break. I'd call it out as a change, not a fix.
Approve or tell me what to change.
Leo (4:25 PM):
Approved. Move the CSV change to the top and say what to do about it.
Maito (4:27 PM):
Moved it first, with a line on reading columns by name instead of position. Final version attached: release-notes-v2.31.pdf. Nothing has been sent to customers.
How to set it up
- Ask your agent
“When we tag a new release in the web app repo, read what shipped since the last tag and draft customer release notes. Post the draft in #product for Leo to approve. Don't publish anything.”
What it won't do
It writes from pull requests and their descriptions. It does not know your marketing plans or which announcements need approval.
Questions
No. It posts a draft in Slack for you to edit and publish.
It leaves out internal work and rewrites the rest for customers, in the tone you set.
Yes. For example a changed default or export format is called out in the draft.
