[theletterf]

This gets Elasticsearch ready for the shared release notes automation without changing how anyone writes changelog entries.

Today docs-builder can't read the files in docs/changelog/, because they use the Elasticsearch format (summary, area, the breaking/deprecation/highlight blocks) rather than docs-builder's. elastic/docs-builder#4528 adds entry formats that a repository selects in its changelog.yml, and ships an elasticsearch format based on build-tools-internal/src/main/resources/changelog-schema.json.

What this PR changes:

• docs/changelog.yml: sets entry_format: elasticsearch, and adds the five schema areas that had no pivot.areas key (DLM, Features, Graph, Ingest, Java High Level REST Client) without labels, so entries that use them validate. The format already translates Snapshot/Restore and Extract&Transform to the names this file uses.
• .github/workflows/release-notes.yml: the shared caller from elastic/docs-actions. On pull requests it checks the type label and validates any entry file the PR adds; on push to main it uploads the entries, converted, to the changelog pool that unified and Serverless release notes read.

I checked it with a local build of #4528: all 718 files in docs/changelog/ on main validate with this config, and the label check passed 298 of the last 300 merged PRs (one had no type label, one had two).

Don't merge yet. entry_format is a new key, and docs-builder releases before #4528 reject unknown keys, so this has to wait until #4528 is merged and in the edge build that the workflows and the Serverless promotion use. I'll mark it ready then.

Not in this PR: release-notes / validate isn't a required check. If it becomes one, the caller needs a merge_group trigger for the merge queue.

Related to elastic/docs-eng-team#1106

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_01TjZFCvQhL3DdrcjFKU6jDT

[github-actions]

🔍 Preview links for changed docs

⏳ Building and deploying preview... View progress

This comment will be updated with preview links when the build is complete.

[elasticsearchmachine]

Pinging @elastic/core-docs (:Docs/General)

[elasticsearchmachine]

Pinging @elastic/core-docs (Team:Docs)

[github-actions]

ℹ️ Important: Docs version tagging

👋 Thanks for updating the docs! Just a friendly reminder that our docs are now cumulative. This means all 9.x versions are documented on the same page and published off of the main branch, instead of creating separate pages for each minor version.

We use applies_to tags to mark version-specific features and changes.

Expand for a quick overview

When to use applies_to tags:

✅ At the page level to indicate which products/deployments the content applies to (mandatory)
✅ When features change state (e.g. preview, ga) in a specific version
✅ When availability differs across deployments and environments

What NOT to do:

❌ Don't remove or replace information that applies to an older version
❌ Don't add new information that applies to a specific version without an applies_to tag
❌ Don't forget that applies_to tags can be used at the page, section, and inline level

🤔 Need help?

• Check out the cumulative docs guidelines
• Reach out in the #docs Slack channel