Update contributing guide

lachlancollins · lachlancollins · commit 91384829db59 · 2025-07-26T18:49:12.000+10:00
diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -155,79 +155,9 @@ You can use Gitpod (An Online Open Source VS Code like IDE which is free for Ope
 
 [![Open in Gitpod](https://gitpod.io/button/open-in-gitpod.svg)](https://gitpod.io/#https://github.com/TanStack/query)
 
-## Commit message conventions
+## Changesets
 
-`TanStack/query` is using [Angular Commit Message Conventions](https://github.com/angular/angular.js/blob/master/DEVELOPERS.md#-git-commit-guidelines).
-
-We have very precise rules over how our git commit messages can be formatted. This leads to **more readable messages** that are easy to follow when looking through the **project history**.
-
-### Commit Message Format
-
-Each commit message consists of a **header**, a **body** and a **footer**. The header has a special
-format that includes a **type**, a **scope** and a **subject**:
-
-```text
-<type>(<scope>): <subject>
-<BLANK LINE>
-<body>
-<BLANK LINE>
-<footer>
-```
-
-The **header** is mandatory and the **scope** of the header is optional.
-
-Any line of the commit message cannot be longer than 100 characters! This allows the message to be easier to read on GitHub as well as in various git tools.
-
-### Type
-
-Must be one of the following:
-
-- **feat**: A new feature
-- **fix**: A bug fix
-- **docs**: Documentation only changes
-- **style**: Changes that do not affect the meaning of the code (white-space, formatting, missing semicolons, etc.)
-- **refactor**: A code change that neither fixes a bug nor adds a feature
-- **perf**: A code change that improves performance
-- **test**: Adding missing or correcting existing tests
-- **chore**: Changes to the build process or auxiliary tools and libraries such as documentation generation
-
-### Scope
-
-The scope could be anything specifying place of the commit change. For example `query-core`, `react-query` etc...
-
-You can use `*` when the change affects more than a single scope.
-
-### Subject
-
-The subject contains succinct description of the change:
-
-- use the imperative, present tense: "change" not "changed" nor "changes"
-- don't capitalize first letter
-- no dot (.) at the end
-
-### Body
-
-Just as in the **subject**, use the imperative, present tense: "change" not "changed" nor "changes". The body should include the motivation for the change and contrast this with previous behavior.
-
-### Footer
-
-The footer should contain any information about **Breaking Changes** and is also the place to [reference GitHub issues that this commit closes](https://help.github.com/en/github/managing-your-work-on-github/linking-a-pull-request-to-an-issue).
-
-**Breaking Changes** should start with the word `BREAKING CHANGE:` with a space or two newlines. The rest of the commit message is then used for this.
-
-### Example
-
-Here is an example of the release type that will be done based on a commit messages:
-
-| Commit message                                                                                                                                                                                    | Release type               |
-| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------- |
-| fix(pencil): stop graphite breaking when too much pressure applied                                                                                                                                | Patch Release              |
-| feat(pencil): add `graphiteWidth` option                                                                                                                                                          | ~~Minor~~ Feature Release  |
-| perf(pencil): remove `graphiteWidth` option<br/><br/>BREAKING CHANGE: The `graphiteWidth` option has been removed.<br/>The default graphite width of 10mm is always used for performance reasons. | ~~Major~~ Breaking Release |
-
-### Revert
-
-If the commit reverts a previous commit, it should begin with `revert:`, followed by the header of the reverted commit. In the body it should say: `This reverts commit <hash>.`, where the hash is the SHA of the commit being reverted.
+This repo uses [Changesets](https://github.com/changesets/changesets) to automate releases. If your PR should release a new package version (patch, minor, or major), please run run `pnpm changeset` and commit the file. If needed, changeset descriptions can be more descriptive, and will be included in the changelog. If your PR affects docs, examples, styles, etc., you probably don't need to generate a changeset.
 
 ## Pull requests
 
@@ -237,7 +167,7 @@ Use an appropriate commit type. Be especially careful with breaking changes.
 
 ## Releases
 
-For each new commit added to `main` with `git push` or by merging a pull request or merging from another branch, a GitHub action is triggered and runs the `semantic-release` command to make a release if there are codebase changes since the last release that affect the package functionalities.
+For each new commit added to `main`, a GitHub Workflow is triggered which runs the [Changesets Action](https://github.com/changesets/action). This generates a preview PR showing the impact of all changesets. When this PR is merged, the package will be published to NPM.
 
 ## 🧪 Test
 
