Changelog & Release Tracker — Do I Need To Upgrade?
Track GitHub and npm releases and get told whether to act. Reads the release notes to flag breaking changes, security fixes and deprecations, counts how many versions you are behind, and returns one urgency verdict per project instead of a wall of markdown.
Changelog & Release Tracker — Do I Need To Upgrade? returns 28 documented output fields, including project, source, version, tag and name. Every field carries a declared type, a written description and an example value. 27 runs are recorded on Apify.
Run it on ApifyPay per result · no subscription
- 28
- Output fields
- 10
- Inputs
- 27
- Runs
- 2026-10-16
- Last run
01 — output
What it returns
Every field the extractor writes to its dataset, with its type, a written description and an example value.
| Field | Type | What it holds | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| project | stringnull | Project name as published. | <project> |
| source | stringnull | Which upstream source produced this row. | official public API |
| version | stringnull | Version of this record or artefact. | <version> |
| tag | stringnull | Tag applied to this record. | <tag> |
| name | stringnull | Display name as the source writes it. | Bitcoin |
| publishedAt | stringnull | ISO 8601 timestamp of publication. | 2026-10-15T09:00:00.000Z |
| url | stringnull | The URL this row describes. | https://example.com/pricing |
| author | stringnull | Author of this record, as the source publishes it. | jane.cooper |
| hasBreakingChanges | booleannull | Whether the new version breaks the previous contract. | true |
| hasSecurityFix | booleannull | Has Security Fix as recorded for this row. | true |
| hasDeprecations | booleannull | Has Deprecations as recorded for this row. | true |
| hasFeatures | booleannull | Has Features as recorded for this row. | true |
| hasFixes | booleannull | Has Fixes as recorded for this row. | true |
| isPrerelease | booleannull | Whether this version is marked as a pre-release. | true |
| notesEmpty | booleannull | Whether the notes field is empty. | true |
| notesUnavailable | booleannull | Whether notes were unavailable at the source. | true |
| bulletCount | integernull | Bullet Count as recorded for this row. | 0 |
| currentVersion | stringnull | Version currently in use. | 4.17.21 |
| latestVersion | stringnull | Most recent version published upstream. | 4.2.1 |
| versionsBehind | integernull | How many releases this version is behind the latest. | 0 |
| urgency | stringnull | How urgent this row is, in words. | medium |
| action | stringnull | Action recommended or taken for this row. | upgrade |
| isNewSinceLastRun | booleannull | Whether this row appeared after the previous run. | true |
| notes | stringnull | Free-text notes recorded with this row. | <notes> |
| status | stringnull | Outcome recorded for this row. | ok |
| checkedAt | stringnull | ISO 8601 timestamp of the most recent check. | 2026-10-16T09:12:44.000Z |
| versionsBehindIsLowerBound | booleannull | True when the real gap could be larger than versionsBehind, because older releases were not fetched. | true |
| oldestReleaseFetched | stringnull | Oldest release the run was able to fetch. | <oldestReleaseFetched> |
02 — sample
One record
Assembled from the example values declared on the schema above, not invented at render time.
{
"project": "<project>",
"source": "official public API",
"version": "<version>",
"tag": "<tag>",
"name": "Bitcoin",
"publishedAt": "2026-10-15T09:00:00.000Z",
"url": "https://example.com/pricing",
"author": "jane.cooper"
}03 — input
What you give it
| Input | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| repositories | arrayoptional | Repos to track as owner/repo or a github.com URL. Append @<your version> to get an upgrade verdict, e.g. facebook/react@19.0.0. |
| npmPackages | arrayoptional | npm packages to track. Append @<your version> for a verdict, e.g. axios@1.6.0. Note the npm registry publishes no release notes, so those rows carry version and date only. |
| githubToken | stringoptional | Secret — supply your own value. |
| maxReleasesPerProject | integeroptional | How many recent releases to fetch for each project. |
| includePrereleases | booleanoptional | Include alpha/beta/rc/canary builds. Off by default — nobody is 'twelve releases behind' because of nightly canaries. |
| onlyNewSinceLastRun | booleanoptional | Return only releases not seen in a previous run. Turns this into a scheduled watcher: pair it with a webhook and you get notified only when something actually ships. |
| includeNotes | booleanoptional | Include the release-note text on each row. |
| notesMaxChars | integeroptional | Truncate release notes to this many characters. |
| snapshotKey | stringoptional | Key-value store key holding what was already seen. Use different keys to watch several sets of projects independently. |
| maxItems | integeroptional | Hard cap on releases returned. You are never charged beyond this. |
04 — run
Run Changelog & Release Tracker on your own input
It runs in the cloud on Apify. Nothing to install, and you are billed per result returned rather than per attempt.
05 — questions
Asked before running it
28 of 28 fields described
- What does Changelog & Release Tracker — Do I Need To Upgrade? return?
- It returns 28 documented output fields: project, source, version, tag, name, publishedAt, url, author, hasBreakingChanges, hasSecurityFix, hasDeprecations and hasFeatures. Each field declares its type, a description of what it holds, and an example value. The remaining 16 are listed in the output schema below.
- What input does Changelog & Release Tracker — Do I Need To Upgrade? take?
- All 10 inputs are optional and ship with usable defaults, so it runs as-is. They are listed with their types below.
- Does Changelog & Release Tracker — Do I Need To Upgrade? need an API key or login?
- Yes — githubToken is marked secret and must be supplied by you. Nothing else in the input schema needs credentials.
- How do I run Changelog & Release Tracker — Do I Need To Upgrade??
- It runs on Apify. Start it from its listing with the inputs above, or call the Apify API with the Actor's ID. Results land in a dataset you can export as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read through the Apify API into your own pipeline.