edit-changelog

---
name: edit-changelog
description: Edit an auto-generated ClickHouse release changelog into the form that gets committed to CHANGELOG.md. Use when the user has the output of `utils/changelog/changelog.py` and wants it cleaned up and re-categorized for a release.
license: Apache-2.0
---

# ClickHouse Changelog Editing Skill

## What this skill does

The autogenerator (`utils/changelog/changelog.py`) converts every PR
description in the release range into a bullet under the category the author
picked. The maintainer then heavily edits that output before it lands in
`CHANGELOG.md`. This skill applies those edits.

The patterns below were derived by diffing the autogenerated commit and the
following "edited" / "Cleanup" commit for releases 25.2, 25.3, 25.5, 25.7 and
verifying against PR descriptions for 26.4. Don't invent new conventions — if
a pattern isn't here, leave the entry alone.

## Arguments

- `$0` (optional): path to the auto-generated changelog file (the output of
  `utils/changelog/changelog.py --output=...`). Edit this file in place.

**If `$0` is omitted, default to editing the most recent release section in
`CHANGELOG.md`.** Identify it by the first `### <a id="..."></a> ClickHouse
release X.Y, ...` heading, and treat the slice from that heading up to the
next `### <a id=` heading as the input. This is the common case after the
maintainer has already pasted the autogenerated output into `CHANGELOG.md`.

## Workflow

1. Read the input file. Confirm it has the autogenerator's structure: a
   `### ClickHouse release ... FIXME ...` header followed by `#### <Category>`
   sections of `* <entry>. [#NNN](...) ([Author](...)).` bullets.
2. Make the edits described under "Edits" below, in the order listed.
3. After each substantive change, show the user a short summary (one line per
   non-trivial edit) — don't dump the whole diff.
4. When done, **do not** commit or paste into `CHANGELOG.md` automatically.
   Tell the user the file is ready; they will paste it into `CHANGELOG.md`
   themselves and commit.

## Edits, in order

Each edit type below was observed at least twice across the surveyed
releases. For real before/after examples, consult the diffs listed at the
bottom under "How to use the surveyed past releases".

### 1. Release header

The autogenerator emits:

```
### ClickHouse release {TO_REF} ({sha11}) FIXME as compared to {FROM_REF} ({sha11})
```

Replace it with:

```
### <a id="NNN"></a> ClickHouse release X.Y[ LTS], YYYY-MM-DD. [Presentation](https://presentations.clickhouse.com/YYYY-release-X.Y/), [Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...)
```

Where `NNN` is the version with dots removed (`26.4` → `264`). LTS marker
is added only if the user says it's an LTS release. If the presentation and
video links aren't known yet, leave a `FIXME` placeholder and tell the user
to fill them in — don't invent URLs.

The TOC at the top of `CHANGELOG.md` also needs a new line; only do this if
the user is editing `CHANGELOG.md` directly.

### 2. Resolve `#### NO CL ENTRY` against the rest of the changelog

These are revert PRs (`Revert "..."`) that the autogenerator includes
because the revert PR has no `Changelog entry`. Walk every bullet in this
section. For each:

1. Read the title of the revert PR (`gh pr view <N> --json title,body`) to
   identify which earlier PR it reverts. Most reverts have a title of the
   form `Revert "<original PR title>"` or `Revert #NNNNN`.
2. Search the rest of the in-progress changelog for the matching entry by
   PR number, title, or topic.
3. **If the original PR is in the same release range** and is being
   reverted: delete that entry from its category. Do **not** keep the
   revert PR as a separate bullet — the user should see no trace of either.
4. **If the original PR shipped in an earlier release** and the revert is
   meant to be visible to users: rewrite the revert into a normal entry
   under the appropriate category (often Bug Fix or Backward Incompatible
   Change), describing the user-visible effect of the revert.
5. **If the revert PR is itself a revert-of-revert** (i.e. it re-applies a
   change that was previously reverted): keep the original entry, append
   the second revert's PR/author link to it so both PR numbers are
   recorded, and delete the intervening revert from the section.
6. After processing, delete any leftover bullets and the section header
   itself.

The goal is that the final changelog reflects the *net* effect on the
release: a PR that landed and then got reverted shouldn't appear at all.

### 3. Drop entire `#### NOT FOR CHANGELOG / INSIGNIFICANT` section, but rescue user-visible entries

Walk every bullet in this section. For each:

- If the entry mentions a user-visible behaviour (function/setting name, a
  `Fix` for a real bug, a perf change with a number, a new column in a
  system table, etc.) — **promote it** into the appropriate category (use
  the rules in §6 to pick the category). Don't strip the *content*; only
  strip developer-internal preambles like "fix msan ...", "ci: ...".
  If after stripping there is no real user-facing description, drop the
  entry instead of promoting an empty one.
- Otherwise — delete it.

Then delete the section header itself.

#### `This closes` / `Closes #N` / `Fixes #N` entries

These are valuable — they tie the change to the issue tracker. **Keep
them**, don't strip. Apply this shape:

- The issue reference belongs **at the end** of the entry, after the
  description text, not at the start.
- The reference must be a markdown link to the issue (`Closes
  [#NNNNN](https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/issues/NNNNN)`),
  not a bare `#N` or a raw URL. The autogenerator already converts most
  of these — re-check.
- If the entry is *only* `Closes #N.` with no description, fetch the PR
  body or the linked issue title and write a one-sentence description of
  what the user observes, then put `Closes [#N](...)` at the end.
- Multiple `Closes`/`Fixes` references can stay; put them all at the end.

Examples of entries that should be promoted (from past releases):
- `Fix renames of columns missing in part.` → Bug Fix.
- `Write Parquet bloom filters.` → New Feature.
- `Reverse key support in PartsSplitter.` → Bug Fix (it had been gated as
  experimental but was shipping).

Examples that should be deleted:
- `update arrow submodule for table reader fixes.` (build plumbing)
- `tests: ...`, `ci: ...`, `Fix flaky test_*`, `Update README.md.`
- `Sync private.`, `Add a test for [#NNNNN].` (no user-visible change).

### 4. Prune `#### Build/Testing/Packaging Improvement`

Most CI infrastructure entries (praktika, internal CI fixes, integration-test
plumbing, fast-test tweaks) are removed. Only items that affect external
users or distributors stay. Keep:

- Toolchain/dependency bumps a user might notice (`Bump curl to ...`,
  `Update to embedded LLVM 19`, `Restore QPL codec`).
- Build-system changes that affect packagers / contributors building from
  source (`Raise minimum required CMake version to 3.25`,
  `Support build HDFS on both ARM and Intel mac`,
  `Fixes to allow building with clang20`).
- Docker image behaviour visible to users (`Disable network access for user
  default in docker image.`).

Delete:

- Anything starting `CI:`, `ci:`, `tests:`, `Fix flaky `, `Disable test`,
  `Bump pytest`, `Update version_date.tsv`, `Switch ... workflow`,
  `Praktika ...`, `Sync ...`, `Refactor `, `chcache: ` (unless it's a
  user-relevant build issue).
- Internal coverage / digest / scheduling / artifact-path tweaks.

### 5. Per-entry text rewrites

For every remaining bullet, in the order below:

#### 5a. Strip leading filler

- A literal leading `... ` produced by the autogenerator's bullet cleanup —
  delete it.
- `TBD.` / `TODO: ...` / `WTF is that?` — the entry is unfinished. Either
  rewrite it from the PR title, or delete and tell the user.
- `What:` prefix produced by Cursor/AI bot PRs — delete the prefix.
- `This PR ... ` / `Changes in this PR: 1. ...` / `In this PR ...` —
  rewrite to start with the user-visible effect.
- `Doing the rewrite in the last major PR ...` / first-person developer
  context — delete or rewrite.
- `Follow up for https://...PR/N. ` / `Follow-up to [#N]. ` with no other
  description — delete the entry; it has no user-facing content. If there
  is real content after the follow-up reference, keep just that.
- An entry that is a real, user-visible change but is written
  incomprehensibly (only in terms of internal classes/methods, e.g. naming
  `MergeTreeSink::consume` and a `delayed_chunk` pattern instead of the
  observable effect) — do **not** leave it and do **not** delete it.
  Open the PR (`gh pr view <N> --json title,body`), read what it actually
  does, and write a proper user-facing entry from scratch (keep the
  original PR/author link). Example: PR #105943's autogenerated entry
  described `delayed_chunk`/`StorageSnapshot` internals; the PR adds the
  setting `wait_for_part_commit_in_dependent_materialized_views`, so the
  correct entry describes that setting and the observable effect (a
  cascading MV that joins back to its source can now see the row being
  inserted). Never ship a `TODO`/`FIXME` placeholder in its place.

#### 5b. Strip trailing artifacts

- `### Documentation entry for user-facing changes` and anything after it
  — the autogenerator sometimes captures this from PR bodies. Cut it.
- "I'll write more info later." / "TODO: explain better" — cut.
- A bare PR/issue URL left inline in any phrasing (not just `Closes`/`Fixes`)
  — convert it to the markdown-link form. E.g. `Follow up to
  https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/pull/106387.` →
  `Follow up to [#106387](https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/pull/106387).`

Do **not** strip trailing `Closes #N` / `Fixes #N` / `Closes
[#N](...)` references. They are valuable. If they're at the start of the
entry, move them to the end after the description. If they're a bare URL
like `Closes: https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/issues/N`, convert
to the markdown-link form `Closes [#N](https://...)` (the autogenerator
already does this for most cases — re-check). See §3 for the full
"Closes/Fixes" rule.

#### 5c. Backtick code-like tokens (most frequent edit by far)

Anything you would type into `clickhouse-client` should be in backticks.
Specifically:

- **Functions** without parens: `geoToH3()` → `geoToH3`, `ToTime` → `toTime`,
  `extractKeyValuePairs`, `tokens`, `countMatches`, `printf`, etc. The
  project rule (CLAUDE.md): "write names of functions and methods as `f`
  instead of `f()` — we prefer it for mathematical purity." Table functions
  count too, including in a comma list: `file()` / `s3()` / `azure()` /
  `url()` → `file` / `s3` / `azure` / `url`.
- **Literal keyword/value names** that name a feature variant read like
  ordinary words but are still literals — backtick them: statistic types
  (`basic`, `countmin`, `minmax`, `tdigest`), codec names, layout names,
  mode strings. E.g. "Support `basic` statistics", not "Support basic
  statistics".
- **Settings**: `parallel_inserts`, `s3_slow_all_threads_after_network_error`,
  `geotoh3_lon_lat_input_order`, `enable_url_encoding`, etc.
- **Types**: `Time`, `Time64`, `JSON`, `Variant`, `BFloat16`, `Decimal`,
  `LowCardinality`, `Array`, `Tuple`, `Nullable`, `Map`, `Float32`,
  `Float64`, `IPv4`, `IPv6`, `Date32`, `DateTime64`.
- **Engines / formats / catalogs**: `MergeTree`, `ReplicatedMergeTree`,
  `Iceberg`, `DeltaLake`, `Kafka`, `Parquet`, `Arrow`, `S3Queue`,
  `RabbitMQ`, `Redis`, `KeeperMap`, `PostgreSQL`, `MySQL`, `Azure`.
  (The autogenerator usually doesn't backtick these.)
- **SQL fragments**: `SET TIME ZONE 'tz'`, `SET session_timezone`,
  `ALTER TABLE ... MOVE|REPLACE PARTITION`, `RENAME COLUMN`, `DROP COLUMN`,
  `CODEC(ZSTD, DoubleDelta)`, `CREATE TABLE`, `SELECT ... FROM ...`.
- **Special tokens**: `-If` combinator, `version-hint.txt`, `_part_offset`.

Don't backtick prose nouns (the user, a query, the index) — only literal
identifiers and code.

#### 5d. Capitalize proper nouns

`iceberg` → `Iceberg`, `azure` → `Azure`, `delta lake` / `delta-kernel` →
`DeltaLake`, `parquet` → `Parquet`, `kafka` → `Kafka`, `rust` → `Rust`,
`postgres` → `PostgreSQL`, `mysql` → `MySQL`. (Skip if the word is already
inside backticks as a literal config value.)

#### 5e. Type-name compounds

Capitalize compounds like `float-to-string` → `Float-to-String` when used
as a noun (e.g. "Faster Float-to-String conversion").

#### 5f. Common typos and small grammar fixes

Observed across releases:

- `Propogate` → `Propagate`
- `on fly` → `on the fly`
- `FIx` → `Fix`
- `2 cases` → `two cases` (spell out small numbers in titles)
- `False` → `false` and `True` → `true` when they refer to ClickHouse
  setting values (these are lowercase in SQL).
- `NOT NULL column` → `not-Nullable column` (use ClickHouse type
  terminology, not SQL standard terminology).
- `NULL` (SQL keyword) stays uppercase.
- Normalize ISA / SIMD names: `avx512` → `AVX-512`, `avx2` → `AVX2`,
  `sse4.2` → `SSE4.2`.
- Inclusive terminology: `whitelist` → `allow-list`, `blacklist` →
  `deny-list`.
- Expand a non-obvious abbreviation on first use: `DP JOIN reordering` →
  `DP (dynamic programming) JOIN reordering`.
- Drop a trailing space before `.`
- Replace double spaces.

#### 5g. Translate developer-jargon to user-visible effect

When the entry reads as a low-level commit message, rewrite it as a
description of what users observe. Real before → after pairs from past
releases:

- `Add __attribute__((always_inline)) to convertDecimalsImpl.` →
  `Better inlining for some operations with Decimal.`
- `Try to speedup QueryTreeHash a bit.` →
  `Speedup comparisons of query trees during the query analysis a bit.`
- `Improve Keeper with rocksdb initial loading.` →
  `Improve the startup of clickhouse-keeper when it uses rocksdb storage.`
- `Removed allocation from the signal handler.` →
  `Fix potentially unsafe call in signal handler.`
- `Fix invalid result buffer size calculation.` →
  `Fix data corruption with CODEC(ZSTD, DoubleDelta).` (replaces vague
  symptom with the user-visible failure mode.)
- `Drop blocks as early as possible to reduce the memory requirements.` →
  `Reduce memory usage for some window functions.`

Strip internal C++ class/method names that mean nothing to a user; state
the effect in plain words instead. Real before → after pairs from Alexey's
26.6 cleanup:

- `... replacing per-chunk column hashing with an IColumn::computeHashInto
  kernel that uses hardware CRC32C.` →
  `... replacing per-chunk column hashing with a kernel that uses hardware
  CRC32C.`
- `Squash source blocks before projection.calculate() during MATERIALIZE
  PROJECTION ...` →
  `Squash source blocks before calculating projection during MATERIALIZE
  PROJECTION ...`

This is the judgement-call step. If you can't find the user-visible
effect from the entry alone, fetch the PR with `gh pr view <N>
--json title,body` and use the title as a starting point.

#### 5h. Match shipped state, not PR-time state

If a function or setting was renamed between PR merge and release (the
actual shipped name differs), update the entry. Real example: 25.2 had
`stringCompare` rewritten to `compareSubstrings` because the function was
renamed before release. If you can't tell, ask.

### 6. Category reassignment

For each entry, decide if its current category is right. Common moves:

- **`Fix`/`Fixed`/`Fixes`-shaped entry → Bug Fix** — but be conservative.
  Bug Fix is reserved for **user-visible misbehavior in the official
  stable release build**. That excludes:
  - Usability improvements ("better error message", "clearer wording",
    "log less") — these go to `Improvement`.
  - Fixes for issues that only manifest in debug builds, sanitizer builds
    (ASan, MSan, UBSan, TSan), or fuzzer-only crashes — these are not
    user-visible in release and stay as `Improvement` (or `Build/Testing`
    if internal).
  - Fixes for `LOGICAL_ERROR` exceptions that only fire in debug
    assertions and produce no incorrect result in release — Improvement.
  - Race conditions or UB that no user has hit because they only
    occur under sanitizer instrumentation — Improvement.

  Move to Bug Fix only when the bug would produce wrong results, a
  crash/exception, data loss, or a hang in a user's release build.
- **Measured speedup / `Faster ...` / `Speedup ...` / `Reduce memory
  usage` → Performance Improvement** even if labelled Improvement. Read
  this broadly: Alexey moved a large batch of efficiency-flavored
  `Improvement` entries into `Performance Improvement` in 26.6. Triggers
  include reducing memory reservation/footprint/fragmentation (dedicated
  arena, freeing earlier), avoiding redundant work (caching, dedup of
  calculations, fewer marks re-read), avoiding copying (hardlink instead
  of copy), turning a perf optimization on by default, and background-IO
  or batching changes. When in the same wave as a significance sort, do
  the move and the reorder together.
- **New SQL surface (function, table function, system table, syntax) →
  New Feature** even if labelled Improvement.
- **Behind a setting and off by default OR explicitly described as
  experimental → Experimental Feature** even if labelled New Feature.
- **`Backward Incompatible Change` is sometimes wrong** when the author
  was over-cautious. If the change is purely additive (a new behaviour
  enabled by a new setting that defaults to old behaviour), move it to
  New Feature or Improvement.

The preferred category order (from `utils/changelog/changelog.py`, which
wraps `tests/ci/changelog.py`) is:

1. Backward Incompatible Change
2. New Feature
3. Experimental Feature
4. Performance Improvement
5. Improvement
6. Bug Fix (user-visible misbehavior in an official stable release)
7. Build/Testing/Packaging Improvement

If you create a category that didn't exist in the input, insert it at the
right position. Do not rename `Experimental Feature` to `Experimental
Features` plural — keep it singular for consistency with newer releases.

### 7. Merge sibling PRs into one bullet

Only merge entries when they cover **the same feature or a group of very
similar features**. Sharing a library or subsystem is *not* enough on its
own — two different Iceberg fixes covering different code paths stay as
two bullets.

Valid reasons to merge:

- **Same feature, multiple PRs**: a follow-up that finishes / fixes /
  promotes the same change. Recognise by `Follow-up to #N` /
  `continuation of #N` in the body, or one PR adding the feature behind a
  setting and a later PR enabling/promoting it (e.g. experimental → GA,
  beta → GA).
- **Same library version bump done twice in the cycle**: e.g. `Update
  chdig to v26.3.1` and a later `Update chdig to v26.4.3` in the same
  release.
- **A group of very similar features added together**: e.g. several
  related arithmetic-or-null functions added in one wave, or a parallel
  set of tokenizer functions, where the per-function description would
  just repeat the same template.
- **Near-duplicate entries** whose text differs only in one token: e.g.
  the `executable` vs `executable_pool` UDF `ProfileEvents` entries
  (#105010 + #105618) — collapse to one bullet covering both.
- **An experimental feature split across several PRs in the same cycle**:
  e.g. the three `use_reader_executor` PRs (#106570 + #106968 + #107210),
  or a base feature PR plus a follow-up that extends it (`make_distributed
  _plan` #106020 + per-worker-ports #107885) — one bullet, all links.
- **"Supersedes" / "Follow-up to" pairs**: when a later PR supersedes or
  extends an earlier one in the same release (e.g. table-readonly #100950
  superseded by #105109), merge them. When you do, drop the now-redundant
  `Supersedes [#N]` / `Follow-up to [#N]` cross-reference *between the two
  merged PRs* — it's noise once both sit in the same bullet.
- **"X; now also works with Y" extensions**: a small follow-up that just
  broadens an earlier change folds in as a trailing clause, e.g.
  `... under a single prompt. [#104299](...) (...). Now also works with
  syntax highlighting disabled (\`--highlight 0\`). [#106665](...) (...).`

Alexey merges noticeably more aggressively than a first pass tends to —
when two adjacent bullets describe the same feature/subsystem from the
same wave of work, prefer one merged bullet over two.

Do **not** merge:

- Two PRs that touch the same engine but solve different problems.
- A new feature and an unrelated bug fix in the same component.
- Things that happen to share a category but have nothing else in common.

Merged form keeps **all** PR/author links at the end:

```
* Update chdig to v26.3.1 (...). [#101092](...) (Azat). Update chdig to v26.4.3 (...). [#103145](...) (Azat).
```

Or rewritten as a single sentence with both links trailing:

```
* Improve Iceberg and Spark compatibility: fix path handling; enforce ...; add fallback for ... [#99163](...) (Daniil Ivanik). [#100420](...) (Daniil Ivanik).
```

When in doubt, leave them as separate bullets — over-merging makes
attribution confusing.

### 8. Reorder within sections

The autogenerator sorts bullets by ascending PR number. That's almost
right. After all other edits:

- **Promote 1–3 headline entries** to the top of each section. Headlines
  are the ones a user would put on a blog post: a major new feature, a
  big perf win, a default change.
- **Cluster thematically related entries** (Iceberg cluster, Web UI
  cluster, text-index cluster) so they're adjacent.
- Leave the long tail in PR-number order.

Don't reorder more than necessary — the diff against the autogenerated
version should still be readable.

**Full significance sort.** The maintainer (and an explicit "sort by
significance" request) goes further than promoting a few headliners: he
re-sorts the *entire* section from most to least significant, in
significance tiers, with related entries clustered inside each tier — and
he does this for **every** category, including `Experimental Feature`, not
just `New Feature`. When asked to sort by significance, sort the whole
section that way; the "don't reorder more than necessary" caution above
applies only to the default cleanup pass, not to an explicit sort request.
Significance reordering and category moves between `Improvement` and
`Performance Improvement` often happen together — Alexey moved a large
batch of memory/efficiency "Improvement" entries into `Performance
Improvement` while sorting (see §6).

Mechanics: reorder by reading the bullets into a map keyed by PR number and
emitting them in the chosen order; assert the set of PR numbers is
unchanged so nothing is dropped or duplicated. Keep exactly one blank line
before the next `####` header (the maintainer will notice a missing one).

### 9. Editorial commentary appended after the author link

Distinctive maintainer pattern: a clarification or warning is appended
**after** the closing `).` of the auto-formatted `[#N](...) (Author).`,
so it visibly belongs to the editor rather than the PR author.

```
* Improved storage format of statistics. All statistics are now stored in a single file. [#93414](...) (Anton Popov). If you didn't explicitly enable table statistics, you can ignore this item.
```

```
* Added system.histogram_metric_log ... [#103046](...) (Stetsyuk). The table structure is likely to be changed in future releases.
```

Add this only when:

- A change is dangerous and users need a "you can ignore this" or "this
  may cause data loss" note,
- A feature's interface is likely to change,
- An LTS / GA / beta status update is worth flagging.

Do **not** use it to replace the entry — only to comment on it.

### 10. Don't touch

- `Backported in #NNN: ...` prefixes (the autogenerator adds these).
- Entries that are already user-friendly and well-formed — most of
  Alexey's own PRs come through clean. Don't paraphrase for paraphrasing's
  sake.
- The `[#NNN](https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/pull/NNN)
  ([Author](https://github.com/login)).` link format.

## How to use the surveyed past releases

If you need a fresh example for any pattern, the diffs are reproducible:

```bash
# 25.2: autogenerated -> cleaned up
git diff 4a220b43f0726f075763001317e1335face260f4 9de7775ca60e2b0361a412e61558872aeff12c08 -- CHANGELOG.md

# 25.3: raw -> changelog
git diff f6d201ad74a905caed7027e1800be035e68ae0cb e3be9c079028faf278cc4ff997675d3015f09a7e -- CHANGELOG.md

# 25.5: autogenerated -> changelog
git diff f17c73bce4a09e67cab299fa4ee97235cfaf3922 fefd0fa7b02c229225de26b31b712b6d543e365c -- CHANGELOG.md

# 25.7: raw unfiltered -> changelog
git diff e7fc5b4eaba229dee5626c5a08a246a89a531bd6 b49397e527eee597db3aa391c53e56654e62e39c -- CHANGELOG.md
```

Use these when you need to verify whether a specific entry shape was kept,
deleted, or rewritten in the past.

## Output format

When the file is ready, give the user:

1. A one-paragraph summary of what changed: section-level cuts, number of
   category moves, number of merges, anything you couldn't decide on.
2. A list of items that need their attention (e.g. presentation/video URL
   placeholders, entries you couldn't classify, suspected duplicates you
   chose not to merge).
3. The path to the edited file.

Do not commit. Do not paste into `CHANGELOG.md`. The user merges it in
manually.