Changelog, in depth
Changelogs do quiet compounding work: they prove the product is alive (prospects check), they let returning users catch up (reducing “what changed?” tickets), and they give shipped work a persistent, linkable artifact. Entries written as user benefit (“export your data as CSV”) rather than commit prose (“refactored export module”) do this work; entries written for engineers do not.
The operational question is upkeep. A changelog abandoned three months ago signals worse than none at all, so match the format to your real cadence — monthly digests are a commitment a small team can keep.
Putting it into practice
If you run one, write entries at ship time while context is fresh, and link them from the roadmap items they complete. TellTide itself communicates through roadmap statuses rather than a hosted changelog — teams that want a full changelog product will find that difference called out honestly in our comparisons.