diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index b19858143c..70c75111be 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@
 /pkg
 Thumbs.db
 bin/
+changelog.tmp
 exit-code
 ui/.bundle
 ui/.sass-cache
diff --git a/GNUmakefile b/GNUmakefile
index 4a6dc3a3f2..72351df5a7 100644
--- a/GNUmakefile
+++ b/GNUmakefile
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ bin: tools
 	@GOTAGS='$(GOTAGS)' sh -c "'$(CURDIR)/scripts/build.sh'"
 
 # dev creates binaries for testing locally - these are put into ./bin and $GOPATH
-dev: vendorfmt dev-build
+dev: changelogfmt vendorfmt dev-build
 
 dev-build:
 	@echo "--> Building consul"
@@ -45,6 +45,10 @@ vendorfmt:
 	test -x $(GOPATH)/bin/vendorfmt || go get -u github.com/magiconair/vendorfmt/cmd/vendorfmt
 	vendorfmt
 
+changelogfmt:
+	@echo "--> Making [GH-xxxx] references clickable..."
+	@sed -E 's|([^\[])\[GH-([0-9]+)\]|\1[[GH-\2](https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/issues/\2)]|g' CHANGELOG.md > changelog.tmp && mv changelog.tmp CHANGELOG.md
+
 # linux builds a linux package independent of the source platform
 linux:
 	mkdir -p pkg/linux_amd64/