[ENH] - Sunset the changelog

[peytondmurray]

Feature description

I'd like to sunset CHANGELOG.md:

• To make it requires an extra step during the release process, which already requires a bunch of manual intervention
• The process for making it requires using github-activity which doesn't see maintenance (although this is a fork, maybe we should use the upstream project?). It also doesn't allow you to use gh auth, so every time I make a release I need to mint a new PAT
• The biggest reason to get rid of it is this is already something that the github web interface has a button for when releasing:

@soapy1 @trallard @pavithraes thoughts?

Value and/or benefit

Fewer release steps, and less chance for human error when publishing the changelog.

Anything else?

No response

[soapy1]

+1 sounds good to me. I think the generated release notes are pretty sweet.

[trallard]

The process for making it requires using github-activity which doesn't see maintenance (although this is a fork, maybe we should use the upstream project?). It also doesn't allow you to use gh auth, so every time I make a release I need to mint a new PAT

Not really. This is a suggestion, but nothing requires using such a tool (I intentionally added this as a footnote suggestion not to force folks to stick to a tool). The release captain can choose the best approach that suits them for this.

+1 sounds good to me. I think the generated release notes are pretty sweet.

I partially disagree here; while they are complete, the generated release notes clump everything together, making it harder for users to identify user-facing enhancements or deprecations.
The reason for having a changelog doc is to aim and follow https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.1.0/ or something similar that separates the types of changes included in a given release.
See for example the latest release notes https://github.com/conda-incubator/conda-store/releases/tag/2024.11.1 where it is not quite straightforward for an end-user to identify items that directly impact them.

So, if the team still wants to proceed and remove the changelog, I think an intentional effort should be made to make the auto-generated release notes easier for end-users to parse (of course, this will still need to be a release captain's responsibility during the release process, so it would continue to require some sort of manual work 🤷‍♀ ).
Or we could use something like https://scriv.readthedocs.io/en/1.5.1/index.html

[soapy1]

I think @trallard makes some really great points about the value of keeping the CHANGELOG.md. The changes introduced in #1006 will automatically generate the release notes (the releaser should update them to be a bit more human friendly). This should decrease the work going into keeping the changelog up to date for each release.

@peytondmurray I feel good about closing this issue if you do.

[peytondmurray]

Let's do it! Closing now.