Recording Changes

Cursus uses a changeset-based workflow where each change is recorded as a small file. This avoids merge conflicts in shared changelog files and gives you full control over how changes are described.

Interactive mode

The simplest way to record a change is with the interactive TUI:

cursus change

The wizard walks you through:

1. Select packages — choose which packages are affected by this change
2. Change type — pick major, minor, or patch for each selected package
3. Description — write a human-readable summary of the change

The resulting changeset file is saved to .cursus/ with a random filename.

Non-interactive mode

For scripting and CI, you can pass all options as flags:

cursus change --no-interactive -t minor -m "Add support for linked versions"

To scope to specific packages:

cursus change --no-interactive -t patch -m "Fix publish retry logic" -p my-package

The -p flag can be repeated to select multiple packages.

Deriving from Conventional Commits

If your project uses Conventional Commits, Cursus can derive changesets automatically:

cursus change --no-interactive --auto

This requires exactly one commit ahead of origin/HEAD. It parses that commit message and maps:

• feat: to a minor change
• fix: to a patch change
• Any commit with a BREAKING CHANGE: footer or ! suffix to a major change

The --auto flag is particularly useful in CI to automatically generate changesets for dependency update PRs. See Automating dependency update changesets for an example workflow.

What gets created

Each cursus change invocation creates a single file in .cursus/ with a random name. See the Changeset Format reference for the file structure.

Commit these files alongside your code changes. They accumulate until a release is prepared, at which point they are consumed and deleted.