Smart Release Notes

Feature Requests
1

I am not a developer but consider myself an advanced technical user of Home Assistant. I find the Release Partys (and other videos from the HA team) to be e great method for learning more and this helps me understand how to keep my system stable. Reading the release notes before updating is on important key to stability.

While watching State of the Open Home 2025 yesterday, I got an Idea and posted this wish on the Youtube chat: “I wish for smart release notes - where only the info relevant for my setup is show. Small system, short release notes.” This was picked up by Paulus (balloob) and shared with Frank (frenck) on the show (at 2:38:10 https://www.youtube.com/live/o4Vctz1_KYE?si=b_WfuD-IWOxueSCD).

And to answer Franks question - no, I do not want a release not for each integration, I want relevant release notes for each of the 2 million HA installations. :blush:. I have great respect for the work that goes into each release. I believe the information needed is already in the release notes as it is. All we need is some function that can filter them locally for each system.

The release notes already contain a reference to the relevant Pull request on Github. The pull request has Information about which integration it is relevant for. This is shown under Labels. That should be sufficient. If not, a more direct tagging may be needed, as suggested by Paul ([@pbutterworth](file:///pbutterworth)): Add related component(s) into the published release notes where he describes tagging the release notes as chips. I have no knowledge of what that means, but a tag that can be associated with the right integration is all that is needed in the release notes themselves.

The next step may be in this request from Matthew Bartle (MattB314): Releases category - #4 by WallyR

The mentioned feedreeder may be able to filter the update notes, based on the taggs. The last key is the a list of the integrations installed on the actual system. Filter the release notes based on this list, and you get smart release notes.

I believe this would be a great way for Home Assistant to become more available to the rapidly growing group of new users that are neither developers nor very technologically interested. They just want something that works and improves life. No smart home system is really there yet, but Home Assistant is the one that is on the best way to become one. Because of the way it is organized - with both the Open Home Foundation and the contributions from the community.

2

As I see it the release notes should be filtered in your system.
Most interesting is the breaking changes, the rest could be useful anyway.
But in HA the release note should filter on the integrations you have and if they have any breaking changes.
If not then there should be a green light or something.
That way you are not “forced” to read it all and you can just blindly click update.

This is not about making separate release notes for everyone.

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3

Good idea! Reading through all the notes just to figure out which apply to me leaves me vulnerable to missing an important one.

This would go a long way toward solving the problem of release notes being written at a technical level that developers understand, but many users may not.

4

If we are looking at the release notes, why doesn’t the link in HA about the new release go straight to the relevant section. If I have the .1 release already installed, then it could be a link to the .2 section directly, not the page and having to scroll down to find it.

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