The preview command

Run dispat preview to plan and print your pending release notes. dispat shows the breaking changes, features, fixes, and provider updates that will go into the next changelog entry and GitHub release body. It covers every package with pending changes in publish order.

You can narrow this list using --package, --space, --group, or the invocation folder. The preview respects release-notes windowing, so a pending prerelease only shows its own changeset. If nothing is pending, dispat prints no pending changes and names your selection.

Choosing which body to preview

Changelogs and GitHub releases are configured separately and can say different things. Pass --changelog to print the changelog entry body or --github to print the GitHub release body. Each output uses its own entry format with a specific header, footer, and releaseName.

Pass both flags to print both bodies under one header per package. dispat labels them --- changelog --- and --- github release ---. If you pass neither flag, dispat prints the changelog entry.

Run a preview to check your channel filters before you release anything. The output renders for the specific channel the pending release is on.

A preview cannot show everything. The ### Release block for a GitHub body in commit mode relies on exported publishing data. Nothing has been published yet, so this block is absent.

When a record is configured to write nothing, the preview tells you in its place:

## core@1.3.0-beta.0 (stable -> beta)

github release withheld: the channels do not admit beta

The reason will be either disabled by config or a restriction on the channels. Creating a GitHub release also depends on the DISPAT_EXPORT_GITHUB export. No preview can know this export value, so the note only covers the configured policy you can act on.

Flags

You can also use the global flags:

Flag	Default	Effect
--changelog	false	Print the changelog entry body. This is the default when you omit --github.
--github	false	Print the GitHub release body using the github entry format. Pass this with --changelog to print and label both.
--package, -p		Narrow to the named packages for every package-selecting command (release, status, run, preview, changelog, autoversion, autowriter, autoreplacer, commit, github, compute). You can repeat the flag, separate names with commas, and use case-insensitive * globs (-p '*' matches every package). See Choosing the packages.
--space, -s		Narrow to every package in the named spaces for the same eleven commands, using the same spelling rules. A standalone package belongs to no space. See Choosing the packages.
--group, -g		Narrow to every package in the named versioning groups for the same eleven commands. A group is a versionGroups entry or a space that versions as one, so it can cross spaces. See Choosing the packages.