feat: add changes Rust CLI for release process management

[Copilot]

Introduces changes, a Rust CLI in changes/ that owns the full release lifecycle for packages in this monorepo — creating changesets, versioning, publishing to npm, and coordinating release branches via GitHub Actions.

CLI (changes/)

Five subcommands, all supporting --package to scope to individual packages or sets:

Command	Purpose
changes add	Create a .changeset/<id>.md file — interactive (prompts) or fully non-interactive via flags
changes version	Apply pending changesets: bump package.json versions, update CHANGELOG.md, remove consumed changeset files
changes publish	Publish unpublished versions to npm, push git tags (name@version), create autogenerated GitHub releases via gh
changes release	Create release/YYYY-MM-DD branch, optionally cherry-pick commits, run versioning, commit + push, open PR to main
changes status	Summarise pending changesets and the version bumps they will produce

# Non-interactive changeset creation (CI-friendly)
changes add --package @primer/react --bump minor --message "Add new Dialog size variants"

# Release a single package, cherry-picking a hotfix commit
changes release --package @primer/react --cherry-pick abc1234

# Dry-run to preview what would be published
changes publish --dry-run

GitHub Actions

• changes-prepare-release.yml — Runs weekly (Monday 10:00 UTC) or via workflow_dispatch. Accepts packages, date, cherry_picks, and dry_run inputs. Calls changes release to create the branch and open the PR.
• changes-publish.yml — Triggers on merge of any release/* PR into main, or manually for on-demand publishes. Builds packages then calls changes publish.

Changelog

New

• changes/ — Rust binary with add, version, publish, release, and status subcommands
• .github/workflows/changes-prepare-release.yml — weekly scheduled release branch + PR workflow
• .github/workflows/changes-publish.yml — publish-on-merge workflow for release/* PRs

Changed

• .gitignore — excludes changes/target/ (Rust build artifacts)

Removed

Rollout strategy

• Patch release
• Minor release
• Major release; if selected, include a written rollout or migration plan
• None; tooling-only addition, no package API changes

Testing & Reviewing

Build and run locally:

cargo build --release --manifest-path changes/Cargo.toml
./changes/target/release/changes status
./changes/target/release/changes release --dry-run

The --dry-run flag on both release and publish lets you verify the full flow without creating branches, pushing tags, or calling npm.

Merge checklist

• Added/updated tests
• Added/updated documentation
• Added/updated previews (Storybook)
• Changes are SSR compatible
• Tested in Chrome
• Tested in Firefox
• Tested in Safari
• Tested in Edge
• (GitHub staff only) Integration tests pass at github/github-ui (Learn more about how to run integration tests)

Original prompt

I want you to help me make a cli in rust to help us manage our release process. For now, it can just be called changes and the source should live in the changes folder. This release cli should allow us to: - Create changesets for packages in the workspace, describing changes and the semver bumps that correspond to them - Version packages in the workspace based on changesets - Publish packages to npm and create appropriate tags/github releases for them In addition, it should also allow us to: - Release individual packages - Be coordinated through github actions Our release process that we want is as follows: - At some cadence every week, we will publish a release of packages that need it - This should create a new release branch, maybe release/ or release/version (whatever makes sense) - This branch should look to publish all the changesets added - It should create a pull request that removes them that merges into main (or release branch) and this propagates to the other when merged. it should also version the changes - When merged, tags should be created and publish workflows should run (feel free to create these, you do not have to reuse what we have) We may also need to cherry pick commits over into this release branch for patch releases so consider that We may also only want to publish a single package (or a set of packages) so consider that, as well For releases on gh, feel free to just use the autogenerated ones for now

Created from Copilot CLI via the copilot delegate command.

[changeset-bot]

⚠️ No Changeset found

Latest commit: dd179e1

Merging this PR will not cause a version bump for any packages. If these changes should not result in a new version, you're good to go. If these changes should result in a version bump, you need to add a changeset.

This PR includes no changesets

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