You should skip that test if your VCS (e.g. git) is not (yet) clean.

Testing the Changes/ChangeLog is something you only want to do just before a release.

It is easy to built that skip into xt/99-changes.t. That is up to the OP. I'd use a module though:

$ cat xt/99-changelog.t
#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Test::More;

eval "use Test::CPAN::Changes";
plan skip_all => "Test::CPAN::Changes required for this test" if $@;

changes_file_ok ("ChangeLog");

done_testing;
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And while at it, also add additional tests:

$ cat xt/50_manifest.t
#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Test::More;

eval "use Test::DistManifest";
plan skip_all => "Test::DistManifest required for testing MANIFEST" if
+ $@;
manifest_ok ();
done_testing;
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$ cat xt/40_filenames.t
#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Test::More;

eval "use Test::Portability::Files";
plan skip_all => "1..0 # Test::Portability::Files required for these t
+ests\n" if $@;

BEGIN { $ENV{RELEASE_TESTING} = 1; }

options (use_file_find => 0, test_amiga_length => 1, test_mac_length =
+> 1);
run_tests ();
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Of course you need pod checks too and when all that is done, dig into Test::Kwalitee to go next-level.

Good luck and kudo's for trying!

edit: I tracked my ChangeLog check:

sub check_changelog {
    # Check if the first date has been updated ...
    my @td = grep m/^Change(?:s|Log)$/i => glob "[Cc]*";
    unless (@td) {
        warn "No ChangeLog to check\n";
        return;
        }
    my %mnt = qw( jan 1 feb 2 mar 3 apr 4 may 5 jun 6 jul 7 aug 8 sep 
+9 oct 10 nov 11 dec 12 );
    open my $fh, "<", $td[0] or croak "$td[0]: $!\n";
    while (<$fh>) {
        s/\b([0-9]{4}) (?:[- ])
            ([0-9]{1,2}) (?:[- ])
            ([0-9]{1,2})\b/$3-$2-$1/x; # 2015-01-15 => 15-01-2015
        m/\b([0-9]{1,2}) (?:[- ])
            ([0-9]{1,2}|[ADFJMNOSadfjmnos][acekopu][abcgilnprtvy]) (?:
+[- ])
            ([0-9]{4})\b/x or next;
        my ($d, $m, $y) = ($1 + 0, ($mnt{lc $2} || $2) + 0, $3 + 0);
        printf STDERR "Most recent ChangeLog entry is dated %02d-%02d-
+%04d\n", $d, $m, $y;
        unless ($ENV{SKIP_CHANGELOG_DATE}) {
            my @t = localtime;
            my $D = Delta_Days ($y, $m , $d, $t[5] + 1900, $t[4] + 1, 
+$t[3]);
            $D < 0 and croak RED,    "Last entry in $td[0] is in the f
+uture!",               RESET, "\n";
            $D > 2 and croak RED,    "Last entry in $td[0] is not up t
+o date ($D days ago)", RESET, "\n";
            $D > 0 and warn  YELLOW, "Last entry in $td[0] is not toda
+y",                    RESET, "\n";
            }
        last;
        }
    close $fh;
    } # check_changelog
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If you prefer dark themes or no colors at all, you probably want to alter the warning lines.

This check is based on English *only*. Even though I am Dutch, my log entries are English only.

@corion $ENV{SKIP_CHANGELOG_DATE} is set in the calling process if my git is not clean.

Don't we then need to copy the test file into xt/ which is as easy to overlook as updating the change log?

You only need to copy/create the test file once. You need to update the change log on every release.

---

🦛

For every release I create a directory structure - or rather Module::Starter does.
Although I do copy over all the test files from the previous version to the new version, the test of the Change Log would copy over in that, wouldn't it?

I think I've just answered my own question...