Feature Request: Integrate version bumping to update source code files

[Ymil]

Hi. git-cliff is great for generating changelogs, but the release workflow requires other tools (like bump2version or semantic-release) to update version numbers in source files (e.g., version.py, package.json).

This forces us to use multiple tools and configs.

Proposal:

Extend git-cliff to handle version bumping directly. git-cliff already understands Conventional Commits to generate the changelog, so it could use that same logic to decide the new version (patch, minor, major).

Example cliff.toml:

Ini, TOML

[version_bump]
[[version_bump.file]]
path = "src/my_project/version.py"
search = '__version__ = "{current_version}"'
replace = '__version__ = "{new_version}"'

[[version_bump.file]]
path = "pyproject.toml"
search = 'version = "{current_version}"'
replace = 'version = "{new_version}"'

Ideal command workflow:

A command like git-cliff --bump --auto would do everything:

• Determine the new version (e.g., v0.2.0) based on commits.
• Update the files defined in [version_bump].
• Update/create the CHANGELOG.md.
• (Ideally) git commit the changes.
• Create the v0.2.0 git tag.

This would make git-cliff an "all-in-one" release tool, removing the need for external dependencies.

Thanks.

[orhun]

Heya 👋🏼

This sounds interesting. I don't want to get into committing/creating tags because that's a bit of out-of-scope but [[version.bump]] config looks doable to me 👍🏼 We could potentially use a similar approach to commit_preprocessors for replacing.

Would you be interested in doing a PoC?

[Ymil]

Hi, I'm glad you like it.

I can try; I'll prepare a proposal as soon as I have time.

Best regards!