--- id: changelog title: Changelog summary: An iPhone app for getting notes into Release Notes in two taps, with photos, voice memos, places, my Upcoming dates, Siri, and widgets. collection: Personal tools and making status: active url: https://github.com/jthingelstad/changelog-ios started: 2026-10-29 topics: - play sources: - kind: github repository: jthingelstad/changelog-ios role: implementation - kind: website url: https://notes.yourversionnumber.com/guide/changelog/ role: reference connections: - to: release-notes label: sends notes into detail: Changelog talks only to Release Notes’ public API, as any app someone writes for it can. It signs in with Release Notes, which asks what it may do and gives it a token of its own. source: https://notes.yourversionnumber.com/guide/changelog/ story: color: "#1a4fe0" introduction: What changed today? Commit. engineering: - The app talks only to Release Notes’ public /v1 API. Signing in is OAuth with PKCE, and the code that comes back is spent once for an ordinary API token, with no refresh token. - Every write goes through an offline queue with an idempotency key, so a note written without a connection waits on the phone, and a resend never makes a duplicate. - ChangelogKit, a Swift package with the API client, the queue, a port of Release Notes’ hashtag rules, and the Keychain storage, is tested on its own. The app, the share extension, and the widgets are SwiftUI on top of it, with no third-party packages. - A test cycle drives the app on a simulator against the Release Notes dev server and its fictional account, and checks each note, photo, voice memo, and date against what the server kept. stack: - Swift and SwiftUI - iOS 26 - App Intents - WidgetKit - Release Notes API - TestFlight related: [] questions: - What does Changelog do that the Release Notes email and website do not? - How does Changelog keep a note written offline from being lost or sent twice? - What did Changelog look like before its redesign? bundles: - id: the-plan title: The plan caption: Before any code, two documents written for my review on the morning of October 29, and kept up to date through the day as I answered their questions. One is the API Release Notes would need, the other the app that would use it, and each was checked against the other. They are here as they were, lightly redacted. - id: first-scaffold title: The first scaffold caption: From the repository’s first half hour. - id: before title: "Before: the first day, in iOS’s own look" caption: October 29, on the simulator against the Release Notes dev server’s fictional account. Grouped lists on grey, the system font, and blue links. - id: after title: "After: on the paper" caption: The same screens on October 30, after the redesign that put every screen on the Release Notes website’s paper, with the same fictional account and the same dates. Cream and navy, cobalt for actions, a tangerine Commit, and the site’s two typefaces, Bricolage Grotesque and Martian Mono. artifacts: - file: api-plan-2026-10-29.md title: The API plan caption: "Tokens, a public API and Changelog as one idea with two doors: what the API would do, the order to build it in, and my calls on each question, quoted as I gave them. Every phase of it was built that day. Taken out: a cousin’s name, an email address, and one sentence." date: 2026-10-29 bundle: the-plan url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/changelog/artifacts/api-plan-2026-10-29.md - file: app-scope-2026-10-29.md title: The app’s scope caption: "Changelog’s screens sketched in text, notifications with no push server, and a table checking each thing the app would do against the API plan, which changed the plan before any of it was built. Taken out: a cousin’s name and an email address." date: 2026-10-29 bundle: the-plan url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/changelog/artifacts/app-scope-2026-10-29.md - file: app-icon.png title: The icon caption: Release Notes’ own icon, the V and dot over two lines of notes, from the first scaffold. It has not changed since. date: 2026-10-29 source: https://github.com/jthingelstad/changelog-ios/commit/db1850e180878ab1c61e933aad28a4603116d59c bundle: first-scaffold url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/changelog/artifacts/app-icon.png - file: first-readme.md title: The first README caption: From the first scaffold, before the API it talks to was live. Photos and voice memos, Upcoming, and Shortcuts and widgets are listed for later versions; all three arrived that same day. date: 2026-10-29 source: https://github.com/jthingelstad/changelog-ios/blob/db1850e180878ab1c61e933aad28a4603116d59c/README.md bundle: first-scaffold url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/changelog/artifacts/first-readme.md - file: sign-in-2026-10-29.png title: The first screen caption: The first scaffold’s sign-in, that morning, which took a token pasted from Release Notes’ Settings. Signing in with Release Notes itself came that evening. date: 2026-10-29 bundle: before url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/changelog/artifacts/sign-in-2026-10-29.png - file: log-2026-10-29.png title: Log, in iOS’s own look caption: Today’s version, a box for what changed, one-tap tags, buttons for a photo, the camera, a voice memo and the place, and Commit, with today’s activity underneath. date: 2026-10-29 bundle: before url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/changelog/artifacts/log-2026-10-29.png - file: upcoming-2026-10-29.png title: Upcoming caption: Birthdays, an anniversary, a trip and an event, each in the line the morning email gives it, like “Mom turns 6.8.0.” date: 2026-10-29 bundle: before url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/changelog/artifacts/upcoming-2026-10-29.png - file: add-a-date-2026-10-29.png title: Adding a date caption: A birthday, anniversary, trip or event, whether it goes in the morning email, and when the phone reminds me. date: 2026-10-29 bundle: before url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/changelog/artifacts/add-a-date-2026-10-29.png - file: activity-2026-10-29.png title: Activity caption: What came in, changed and went out, from every channel, without a note’s words. date: 2026-10-29 bundle: before url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/changelog/artifacts/activity-2026-10-29.png - file: settings-2026-10-29.png title: The foot of Settings caption: "Pinned tags, links to Release Notes, a debug build’s server switch, and the build line: Changelog 0.0.0, build 8a54afc, made Oct 29 at 3:57 PM CDT." date: 2026-10-29 bundle: before url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/changelog/artifacts/settings-2026-10-29.png - file: sign-in-2026-10-30.png title: Signing in caption: By now Changelog signs in with Release Notes itself, which asks me to name the token it keeps and choose what it may do. A pasted token still works. date: 2026-10-30 bundle: after url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/changelog/artifacts/sign-in-2026-10-30.png - file: log-2026-10-30.png title: Log on the paper caption: The day in mono capitals, today’s version large and tomorrow’s under it, and below, a note filed and read back with its words. date: 2026-10-30 bundle: after url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/changelog/artifacts/log-2026-10-30.png - file: upcoming-2026-10-30.png title: Upcoming on the paper caption: The same five dates, each day in cobalt mono over its line. date: 2026-10-30 bundle: after url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/changelog/artifacts/upcoming-2026-10-30.png - file: add-a-date-2026-10-30.png title: Adding a date on the paper caption: The same form, flat on the paper instead of in grouped boxes. date: 2026-10-30 bundle: after url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/changelog/artifacts/add-a-date-2026-10-30.png - file: activity-2026-10-30.png title: Activity on the paper caption: With a line marking where I last looked, so what is new since is on top. date: 2026-10-30 bundle: after url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/changelog/artifacts/activity-2026-10-30.png - file: settings-2026-10-30.png title: The foot of Settings on the paper caption: "The build line in Martian Mono: Changelog 0.0.1, build 974deb4." date: 2026-10-30 bundle: after url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/changelog/artifacts/settings-2026-10-30.png - file: log-paper-2026-10-30.png title: Log, as the guide shows it caption: The screenshot on Release Notes for Changelog, the app’s page on the Release Notes site. date: 2026-10-30 source: https://notes.yourversionnumber.com/guide/changelog/ bundle: after url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/changelog/artifacts/log-paper-2026-10-30.png - file: upcoming-paper-2026-10-30.png title: Upcoming in dark caption: The same paper in the website’s dark navy, from the guide. date: 2026-10-30 source: https://notes.yourversionnumber.com/guide/changelog/ bundle: after url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/changelog/artifacts/upcoming-paper-2026-10-30.png page: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/changelog/ --- # Changelog An iPhone app for getting notes into Release Notes in two taps, with photos, voice memos, places, my Upcoming dates, Siri, and widgets. Changelog is an iPhone app for getting notes into [Release Notes](https://notes.yourversionnumber.com/), my daily Your Version Number email. It is not a second Release Notes: reading, searching, and looking back stay on the web, and Changelog is for getting things in. I write a line, tap a tag, and Commit, and it is in today’s notes. A note can carry photos, a voice memo, or where I am, and Siri, the Action Button, a widget, or the share sheet can start one. My Upcoming dates, and the activity log from every channel, are a tab away. I built it with coding agents, starting on the morning of October 29, 2026. It began as two documents, a plan for the API Release Notes would need and a scope for the app, and both are below. The repository was made at 7:43 a.m., and by 8:06 the first scaffold had Log, Activity, Settings, and a sign-in that took a pasted token. Its first README listed photos and voice memos, Upcoming, and Shortcuts and widgets as versions to come. All three arrived that same day, along with signing in with Release Notes, and the first build was on TestFlight by that evening. For its first day it wore iOS’s own look: grouped lists on grey, the system font, and blue links. On October 30 I asked for it to match the Release Notes website, and every screen, sheet, and widget moved onto the site’s paper: cream and navy, cobalt for actions, a tangerine Commit, and the site’s two typefaces, Bricolage Grotesque and Martian Mono. The screens below show each one before and after, taken on the simulator against the Release Notes dev server and its fictional account. It numbers itself the way Release Notes numbers people. Changelog was 0.0.0 on the day it started and 0.0.1 the next, and the foot of Settings names each build’s version and commit. What each version brought is written up as [Release Notes for Changelog](https://notes.yourversionnumber.com/guide/changelog/) on the Release Notes site, which also has the TestFlight invitation. Its code is open on GitHub under the MIT License.