diff --git a/.github/draft_release_notes.sh b/.github/draft_release_notes.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..bb8c6d91ba
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/draft_release_notes.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+#! /bin/sh
+
+# this script assumes the GITHUB_TOKEN and PREVIOUS_TAG environment variables have been set;
+# it produces a 'Changes.md' file as its final output;
+# the file 'last-300-prs-with-release-note.txt' that is produces is intermediate data; it is not
+# pruned for now to assist development of the release notes process (we are still curating all this)
+
+sudo apt-get -y install jq
+sudo apt-get -y install wget
+curl -L https://github.com/github/hub/releases/download/v2.14.2/hub-linux-amd64-2.14.2.tgz | tar xzf -
+PWD=`pwd`
+export PATH=$PWD/hub-linux-amd64-2.14.2/bin:$PATH
+git fetch --all --tags --prune --force
+echo -e "# Insert Title\n" > Changes.md
+echo -e "## Features\n\n## Fixes\n\n## Backwards incompatible changes\n\n## Docs\n\n## Misc\n\n## Thanks" >> Changes.md    - name: Draft Release
+# this effectively gets the commit associated with github.event.inputs.tags
+COMMON_ANCESTOR=$(git merge-base $PREVIOUS_TAG HEAD)
+# in theory the new tag has not been created yet; do we want another input that specifies the existing
+# commit desired for drafting the release? for now, we are using HEAD in the above git merge-base call
+# and PR cross referencing below
+
+# use of 'hub', which is an extension of the 'git' CLI, allows for pulling of PRs, though we can't search based on commits
+# associated with those PRs, so we grab a super big number, 300, which should guarantee grabbing all the PRs back to
+# github.events.inputs.tags; we use grep -v to filter out release-note-none and release-note-action-required
+hub pr list --state merged -L 300 -f "%sm;%au;%i;%t;%L%n" | egrep ", release-note|release-note," | grep -v release-note-none | grep -v release-note-action-required > last-300-prs-with-release-note.txt
+# now we cylce through last-300-prs-with-release-note.txt, filtering out stuff that is too old or other anomalies,
+# and update Changes.md with the release note.
+while IFS= read -r pr; do
+   SHA=$(echo $pr | cut -d';' -f1)
+   # skip the common ancestor, which in essences is the commit associated with the tag github.event.inputs.tags
+   if [ "$SHA" == "$COMMON_ANCESTOR" ]; then
+      continue
+   fi
+
+   # styllistic clarification, purposefully avoiding slicker / cleverer / more compact scripting conventions
+
+   # this makes sure that this PR has merged
+   git merge-base --is-ancestor $SHA HEAD
+   rc=$?
+   if [ ${rc} -eq 1 ]; then
+      continue
+   fi
+   # otherwise, if the current commit from the last 300 PRs is not an ancestor of github.event.inputs.tags, we have gone too far, so skip
+   git merge-base --is-ancestor $COMMON_ANCESTOR $SHA
+   rc=$?
+   if [ ${rc} -eq 1 ]; then
+      continue
+   fi
+   # if we are at this point, we have a PR with a release note to add
+   AUTHOR=$(echo $pr | cut -d';' -f2)
+   PR_NUM=$(echo $pr | cut -d';' -f3)
+   PR_RELEASE_NOTE=$(wget -q -O- https://api.github.com/repos/shipwright-io/build/issues/${PR_NUM:1} | jq .body -r | grep -oPz '(?s)(?<=```release-note..)(.+?)(?=```)' | grep -avP '\W*(Your release note here|action required: your release note here|NONE)\W*')
+   echo -e "$PR_NUM by $AUTHOR: $PR_RELEASE_NOTE" >> Changes.md
+done < last-300-prs-with-release-note.txt
diff --git a/.github/workflows/release.yaml b/.github/workflows/release.yaml
index ebd3da76b7..d682a3e548 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/release.yaml
+++ b/.github/workflows/release.yaml
@@ -19,11 +19,15 @@ jobs:
       with:
         fetch-depth: 0
     - name: Build Release Changelog
+      env:
+        GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
+        PREVIOUS_TAG: ${{ github.event.inputs.tags }}
       run: |
-        git fetch --all --tags --prune --force
-        echo -e "# Insert Title\n" > Changes.md
-        git log --pretty=format:"%h -  %s - %an" ${{ github.event.inputs.tags }}..HEAD | grep -v "Merge pull" >> Changes.md
-        echo -e "## Features\n\n## Fixes\n\n## Backwards incompatible changes\n\n## Docs\n\n## Misc\n\n## Thanks" >> Changes.md    - name: Draft Release
+        # might not be necessary but make sure
+        chmod +x "${GITHUB_WORKSPACE}/.github/draft_release_notes.sh"
+        export GITHUB_TOKEN
+        export PREVIOUS_TAG
+        "${GITHUB_WORKSPACE}/.github/draft_release_notes.sh"
     - name: Draft release
       id: draft_release
       uses: actions/create-release@v1