How a spontaneous side project became something bigger than I expected.
It started on a Friday night, like so many side projects do—with a problem I didn’t want to keep solving manually.
I was juggling multiple codebases, trying to keep documentation consistent across them, and I found myself copying and pasting the same changelog template into different repos. It was boring, repetitive, and prone to human error. So I thought: What if I automate this?
I opened my editor and started hacking.
I didn’t expect that 48 hours later, I’d be sharing the tool online. I definitely didn’t expect it to end up with over 2,000 installs and messages from developers saying, “This saved me so much time.”
This is the story of how a small weekend hack became a tool that other developers actually use—and a few things I learned along the way.
1. Scratching Your Own Itch Is a Great Place to Start
I wasn’t building for “a market” or “an audience.” I was solving my own problem.
That’s key. When you’re the target user, you have natural clarity about what the MVP (minimum viable product) should look like. You know what’s annoying. You know what “done” feels like.
My tool—let’s call it AutoChangelog—did exactly one thing:
→ Parse Git commits and generate a clean, markdown-formatted changelog.
That was it. No UI. Just a CLI you could run with npx. It worked for my needs, and I figured maybe someone else might find it handy too.
2. Build Fast, but Build Clean
Even though I was moving quickly, I didn’t let quality slip.
I used a simple stack:
- Node.js for CLI functionality
- Chalk and Inquirer for user prompts and styling
- Git CLI for parsing logs
- Commander.js for argument handling
And I documented everything—README, examples, install instructions. If you want others to use your tool, good docs are not optional.
Before pushing to npm, I tested it across different Git repositories to make sure it didn’t blow up when used outside my environment.
The code wasn’t perfect, but it was stable, readable, and easy to extend.
3. Sharing It: Not as Scary as It Seems
Shipping is the step where most weekend projects die.
I almost didn’t publish it. “Who even needs this?” I thought. “There are bigger, better changelog tools.”
But here’s the thing: most developers don’t need the biggest or most complex tool. They need one that works, fast.
I tweeted a demo GIF. I posted it on Reddit’s r/webdev and r/programming. I added a short post on Dev.to explaining what it did and why I built it.
And people responded.
4. Iterating Based on Real Feedback
A few developers sent me issues and suggestions. They weren’t just using it—they wanted to help improve it.
Here’s some of what I added based on their feedback:
- Config file support (
autochangelog.config.json) - Conventional Commit parsing
- Option to group by tag or date
- Markdown output directly to
CHANGELOG.md
Each improvement made it feel more real. More stable. More professional.
And each time I pushed an update, I felt a little more confident that this wasn’t just a throwaway script anymore.
5. Lessons I Learned Along the Way
- You don’t need a startup to make impact. A simple, focused tool that solves a clear problem can earn real appreciation.
- Don’t wait for perfection. If it works for you, it’ll probably work for others. Polish it enough to not break, and ship it.
- Good documentation is a superpower. Most people decide in 10 seconds if they’ll keep reading your README. Make it count.
- Responding to users builds community. Even a quick “Thanks for the feedback!” makes people feel connected to the project.
- GitHub stars are cool. Real users are better. Don’t measure your project’s worth by vanity metrics. The best feedback is someone saying, “Hey, I use this every day.”
Final Thoughts
I didn’t plan to build a tool anyone else would use. But solving my own problem with a bit of care—and the courage to share it—turned a weekend hack into something real.
Now, I maintain AutoChangelog with a small but steady group of users. I’ve learned about versioning, open source etiquette, semantic commits, and more. And most importantly, I learned that you don’t need a huge idea to make something worthwhile.
