changelog-guard.yml

name: Changelog Guard

# CHANGELOG.md is generated by release-please from Conventional Commit titles
# (see .release-please-config.json). Hand-editing it makes every concurrent PR
# conflict on the same `## Unreleased` lines — the "changelog cascade" where one
# merge turns the rest DIRTY. `.gitattributes merge=union` does not help because
# GitHub squash-merge ignores merge drivers. So the fix is to stop hand-edits at
# the source: this guard fails any PR that touches CHANGELOG.md, except
# release-please's own release PR (the one place it is meant to change).
#
# ponytail: uses the preinstalled gh CLI, no third-party action to pin. If a
# rare PR legitimately must edit CHANGELOG.md, a maintainer can merge past this
# non-required check; add a label-based exemption only if that ever recurs.

on:
  pull_request:

permissions:
  contents: read
  pull-requests: read

jobs:
  no-manual-changelog:
    # release-please's release PR is the sole author of CHANGELOG.md.
    if: ${{ !startsWith(github.head_ref, 'release-please--') }}
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Reject manual CHANGELOG.md edits
        env:
          GH_TOKEN: ${{ github.token }}
        run: |
          if gh pr view "${{ github.event.pull_request.number }}" \
               --repo "${{ github.repository }}" \
               --json files --jq '.files[].path' | grep -qx 'CHANGELOG.md'; then
            echo "::error::Do not edit CHANGELOG.md by hand. release-please generates it from your Conventional Commit PR title (e.g. 'fix(proxy): ...'). Remove the CHANGELOG.md change — your entry appears automatically in the next release PR."
            exit 1
          fi
          echo "OK — CHANGELOG.md not modified."