inline-code @mentions are linkified in default changelog notes

[MilesCranmerBot]

Environment details

• OS: Ubuntu 24.04
• Node.js version: v22.22.0
• npm version: 10.x
• release-please version: 17.3.0

Steps to reproduce

1. Generate release notes using the default changelog path from a commit subject that contains an inline-code mention-like token, for example:
   - feat: add `@spawn` macro
   - fix: bug in `@unsafe` macro

2. Inspect the generated markdown output.

Actual behavior:

• mention-like text inside inline code spans is rewritten into a GitHub user link, e.g.
  • `[@spawn](https://github.com/spawn)`
  • `[@unsafe](https://github.com/unsafe)`

Expected behavior:

• mention-like text inside inline code spans should remain literal inline code:
  • `@spawn`
  • `@unsafe`

Notes:

• This seems to come from the default changelog generation stack used by release-please via conventional-changelog-conventionalcommits.
• In conventional-changelog-conventionalcommits/writer-opts.js, the subject transform rewrites @user to [@user](...) without distinguishing plain text from inline-code content.
• release-please already preserves inline code specially for < / > escaping in src/changelog-notes/default.ts, so it seems reasonable to also preserve inline-code @... literally.

cc @MilesCranmer

[MilesCranmer]

For example, see the following commit: MilesCranmer/BorrowChecker.jl@cea4efb. GitHub identifies the backtick, so does not turn it into a user tag.

But when I render changelogs with release-please, I see the following: https://github.com/MilesCranmer/BorrowChecker.jl/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md#042-2026-01-24

[MilesCranmer]

@suztomo I would classify this as a bugfix rather than a feature request. The current behavior results in release-please's release notes tagging someone on GitHub, even when a user's GitHub commit message itself does not. I am assuming this is not intentional behavior.