diff --git a/Gemfile b/Gemfile
index 9a44a82..7bde168 100644
--- a/Gemfile
+++ b/Gemfile
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ source ENV['GEM_SOURCE'] || "https://rubygems.org"
 
 gemspec
 
-group :release do
-  gem 'faraday-retry', require: false
-  gem 'github_changelog_generator', require: false
+group :release, optional: true do
+  gem 'faraday-retry', '~> 2.1', require: false
+  gem 'github_changelog_generator','~> 1.16', '>= 1.16.4', require: false
 end
diff --git a/Rakefile b/Rakefile
index 5047fa4..2528f7f 100644
--- a/Rakefile
+++ b/Rakefile
@@ -169,13 +169,15 @@ end
 begin
   require 'rubygems'
   require 'github_changelog_generator/task'
-
+rescue LoadError
+  # github_changelog_generator is an optional group
+else
   GitHubChangelogGenerator::RakeTask.new :changelog do |config|
+    version = Voxpupuli::Release::VERSION
     config.header = "# Changelog\n\nAll notable changes to this project will be documented in this file."
-    config.exclude_labels = %w{duplicate question invalid wontfix wont-fix skip-changelog modulesync}
+    config.exclude_labels = %w[duplicate question invalid wontfix wont-fix skip-changelog github_actions]
     config.user = 'voxpupuli'
     config.project = 'beaker-openstack'
     config.future_release = Gem::Specification.load("#{config.project}.gemspec").version
   end
-rescue LoadError
 end