fetch tags

.github/workflows/prepare-prerelease.yml

@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ jobs:
         with:
           ref: main-v2
           # this needs to be set to a high enough number that it will contain the last version tag
-          # as of May 2023, the whole repo has 55K commits
+          # as of May 2023, the whole repo had 55K commits
           fetch-depth: 10000
 
       - name: Setup Node.js
@@ -84,6 +84,10 @@ jobs:
         run: |
           yarn release:version --release-type ${{ inputs.release-type || 'prerelease' }} ${{ inputs.pre-id && format('{0} {1}', '--pre-id', inputs.pre-id) }} --verbose
 
+      # tags are needed for the changelog generation
+      - name: Fetch git tags
+        run: git fetch --tags origin
+
       - name: Write changelog
         env:
           GH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

scripts/release/write-changelog.ts

@@ -89,6 +89,11 @@ const getFromCommit = async (from?: string | undefined, verbose?: boolean) => {
     console.log(`🔍 No 'from' specified, finding latest version tag, fetching all of them...`);
     // await git.fetch('origin', ['--all', '--tags']);
     const { latest } = await git.tags(['v*', '--sort=-v:refname', '--merged']);
+    if (!latest) {
+      throw new Error(
+        'Could not automatically detect which commit to generate from, because no version tag was found in the history. Have you fetch tags?'
+      );
+    }
     actualFrom = latest;
     if (verbose) {
       console.log(`🔍 No 'from' specified, found latest tag: ${chalk.blue(latest)}`);