{"thread":{"id":"65315","subject":"[PATCH] Add a config option to add a comment to S-o-b lines","startedAt":"2026-03-20T10:29:04Z","lastAt":"2026-03-20T22:36:12Z","messageCount":4,"participants":["Uwe Kleine-König","Kristoffer Haugsbakk","Junio C Hamano"],"isPatch":true,"patchVersion":1,"patchTotal":null},"messages":[{"id":"539507","messageId":"20260320102844.2714876-2-u.kleine-koenig@baylibre.com","threadId":"65315","inReplyTo":null,"subject":"[PATCH] Add a config option to add a comment to S-o-b lines","fromName":"Uwe Kleine-König","fromEmail":"u.kleine-koenig@baylibre.com","sentAt":"2026-03-20T10:28:39Z","receivedAt":"2026-03-20T10:29:04Z","isPatch":true,"sender":{"key":"u.kleine-koenig@baylibre.com","avatar":null},"body":"As an employee of a consultant company I'm often requested to mention\nthe customer name in the Signed-off-by line. Add a config knob\n\"user.signoffcomment\" to configure this and use it in automatically\ngenerated S-o-b lines.\n\nSigned-off-by: Uwe Kleine-König (The Capable Hub) \n---\n ident.c | 26 ++++++++++++++++++++++----\n ident.h | 3 ++-\n sequencer.c | 2 +-\n 3 files changed, 25 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)\n\ndiff --git a/ident.c b/ident.c\nindex 0b7aacecd7d9..09c7823e8f29 100644\n--- a/ident.c\n+++ b/ident.c\n@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ static struct strbuf git_author_name = STRBUF_INIT;\n static struct strbuf git_author_email = STRBUF_INIT;\n static struct strbuf git_committer_name = STRBUF_INIT;\n static struct strbuf git_committer_email = STRBUF_INIT;\n+static struct strbuf git_sob_comment = STRBUF_INIT;\n static int default_email_is_bogus;\n static int default_name_is_bogus;\n \n@@ -468,7 +469,8 @@ const char *fmt_ident(const char *name, const char *email,\n \tif (!email) {\n \t\tif (whose_ident == WANT_AUTHOR_IDENT && git_author_email.len)\n \t\t\temail = git_author_email.buf;\n-\t\telse if (whose_ident == WANT_COMMITTER_IDENT && git_committer_email.len)\n+\t\telse if ((whose_ident == WANT_COMMITTER_IDENT || whose_ident == WANT_SOB_IDENT) &&\n+\t\t\t git_committer_email.len)\n \t\t\temail = git_committer_email.buf;\n \t}\n \tif (!email) {\n@@ -489,8 +491,9 @@ const char *fmt_ident(const char *name, const char *email,\n \t\tif (!name) {\n \t\t\tif (whose_ident == WANT_AUTHOR_IDENT && git_author_name.len)\n \t\t\t\tname = git_author_name.buf;\n-\t\t\telse if (whose_ident == WANT_COMMITTER_IDENT &&\n-\t\t\t\t\tgit_committer_name.len)\n+\t\t\telse if ((whose_ident == WANT_COMMITTER_IDENT ||\n+\t\t\t\t whose_ident == WANT_SOB_IDENT) &&\n+\t\t\t\t git_committer_name.len)\n \t\t\t\tname = git_committer_name.buf;\n \t\t}\n \t\tif (!name) {\n@@ -523,7 +526,13 @@ const char *fmt_ident(const char *name, const char *email,\n \tstrbuf_reset(ident);\n \tif (want_name) {\n \t\tstrbuf_addstr_without_crud(ident, name);\n-\t\tstrbuf_addstr(ident, \" <\");\n+\t\tstrbuf_addstr(ident, \" \");\n+\t\tif (whose_ident == WANT_SOB_IDENT) {\n+\t\t\tstrbuf_addstr(ident, \"(\");\n+\t\t\tstrbuf_addstr_without_crud(ident, git_sob_comment.buf);\n+\t\t\tstrbuf_addstr(ident, \") \");\n+\t\t}\n+\t\tstrbuf_addstr(ident, \"<\");\n \t}\n \tstrbuf_addstr_without_crud(ident, email);\n \tif (want_name)\n@@ -554,6 +563,7 @@ const char *fmt_name(enum want_ident whose_ident)\n \t\temail = getenv(\"GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL\");\n \t\tbreak;\n \tcase WANT_COMMITTER_IDENT:\n+\tcase WANT_SOB_IDENT:\n \t\tname = getenv(\"GIT_COMMITTER_NAME\");\n \t\temail = getenv(\"GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL\");\n \t\tbreak;\n@@ -671,6 +681,14 @@ static int set_ident(const char *var, const char *value)\n \t\treturn 0;\n \t}\n \n+\tif (!strcmp(var, \"user.signoffcomment\")) {\n+\t\tif (!value)\n+\t\t\treturn config_error_nonbool(var);\n+\t\tstrbuf_reset(&git_sob_comment);\n+\t\tstrbuf_addstr(&git_sob_comment, value);\n+\t\treturn 0;\n+\t}\n+\n \treturn 0;\n }\n \ndiff --git a/ident.h b/ident.h\nindex 3c034038791b..bd3cd3e2655f 100644\n--- a/ident.h\n+++ b/ident.h\n@@ -21,7 +21,8 @@ struct ident_split {\n enum want_ident {\n \tWANT_BLANK_IDENT,\n \tWANT_AUTHOR_IDENT,\n-\tWANT_COMMITTER_IDENT\n+\tWANT_COMMITTER_IDENT,\n+\tWANT_SOB_IDENT,\n };\n \n const char *ident_default_name(void);\ndiff --git a/sequencer.c b/sequencer.c\nindex e5af49cecd08..37494b35c6ae 100644\n--- a/sequencer.c\n+++ b/sequencer.c\n@@ -5635,7 +5635,7 @@ void append_signoff(struct strbuf *msgbuf, size_t ignore_footer, unsigned flag)\n \tint has_footer;\n \n \tstrbuf_addstr(&sob, sign_off_header);\n-\tstrbuf_addstr(&sob, fmt_name(WANT_COMMITTER_IDENT));\n+\tstrbuf_addstr(&sob, fmt_name(WANT_SOB_IDENT));\n \tstrbuf_addch(&sob, '\\n');\n \n \tif (!ignore_footer)\n-- \n2.47.3\n\n"},{"id":"539510","messageId":"4333ce73-9c30-417f-95a4-356362488444@app.fastmail.com","threadId":"65315","inReplyTo":"20260320102844.2714876-2-u.kleine-koenig@baylibre.com","subject":"Re: [PATCH] Add a config option to add a comment to S-o-b lines","fromName":"Kristoffer Haugsbakk","fromEmail":"kristofferhaugsbakk@fastmail.com","sentAt":"2026-03-20T11:00:21Z","receivedAt":"2026-03-20T11:00:55Z","isPatch":true,"sender":{"key":"kristofferhaugsbakk@fastmail.com","avatar":null},"body":"On Fri, Mar 20, 2026, at 11:28, Uwe Kleine-König wrote:\n> As an employee of a consultant company I'm often requested to mention\n> the customer name in the Signed-off-by line. Add a config knob\n\nAnd this is a widespread practice?\n\nLooking at the Linux Kernel there does seem to be a fair few hits.\n\n> \"user.signoffcomment\" to configure this and use it in automatically\n> generated S-o-b lines.\n>\n> Signed-off-by: Uwe Kleine-König (The Capable Hub) \n> ---\n>[snip]\n\nWhat are the alternatives? I imagine that the commit-msg hook with\ngit-interpret-trailers(1) could do the same thing.\n\nAdding extra-ident data doesn’t seem to harmonize with grouping by\ntrailers (git-shortlog(1) with `--group=trailer:`) in the case where the\nsame person contributes under different orgs or something across the\nyears. The mailmap can’t be used for trailers. In that light should\ngit(1) implicitly encourage such a practice over the alternatives like a\nseparate trailer pre/post the `-by` trailer?\n\nI know it’s not the same thing—just an extension—but git-commit(1)\nnow says:\n\n Git does not (and will not) have a configuration variable to enable\n the --signoff command line option by default; see the commit.signoff\n entry in gitfaq(7) for more details.\n\nThis does not configure a signoff but it does put more stuff on top of a\n“historical mistake”.\n"},{"id":"539569","messageId":"xmqq341ufn12.fsf@gitster.g","threadId":"65315","inReplyTo":"20260320102844.2714876-2-u.kleine-koenig@baylibre.com","subject":"Re: [PATCH] Add a config option to add a comment to S-o-b lines","fromName":"Junio C Hamano","fromEmail":"gitster@pobox.com","sentAt":"2026-03-20T17:06:49Z","receivedAt":"2026-03-20T17:06:52Z","isPatch":true,"sender":{"key":"gitster@pobox.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/54884?v=4"},"body":"Uwe Kleine-König writes:\n\n> As an employee of a consultant company I'm often requested to mention\n> the customer name in the Signed-off-by line. Add a config knob\n> \"user.signoffcomment\" to configure this and use it in automatically\n> generated S-o-b lines.\n>\n> Signed-off-by: Uwe Kleine-König (The Capable Hub) \n> ---\n\nI know it is not the thrust of this patch, but I think you should\nthink about this question at the same time, eh, rather, I do not\nthink we want to add a feature like this without thinking things\nlike the following through:\n\nHow should this practice interact with commands like \"git log\n--author=\", \"git shortlog\", and friends?\n\nWould projects accepting contributions signed like so want to have a\nfeature to easily strip the comments without having to add new\nentries to their .mailmap every time a known contributor works for a\nnew client?\n\nAnd then there is a question of \"what shape of comment do we want?\nis it OK for us to dictate that it comes after the author's human\nreadable name identity enclosed in parentheses?\".\n\nShouldn't interpret-trailers be a good place to do this, instead of\na configuration option?\n\nThanks.\n"},{"id":"539580","messageId":"xmqq7br6dt7q.fsf@gitster.g","threadId":"65315","inReplyTo":"xmqq341ufn12.fsf@gitster.g","subject":"Re: [PATCH] Add a config option to add a comment to S-o-b lines","fromName":"Junio C Hamano","fromEmail":"gitster@pobox.com","sentAt":"2026-03-20T22:36:09Z","receivedAt":"2026-03-20T22:36:12Z","isPatch":true,"sender":{"key":"gitster@pobox.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/54884?v=4"},"body":"Junio C Hamano writes:\n\n> Uwe Kleine-König writes:\n>\n>> As an employee of a consultant company I'm often requested to mention\n>> the customer name in the Signed-off-by line. Add a config knob\n>> \"user.signoffcomment\" to configure this and use it in automatically\n>> generated S-o-b lines.\n>>\n>> Signed-off-by: Uwe Kleine-König (The Capable Hub) \n>> ---\n>\n> I know it is not the thrust of this patch, but I think you should\n> think about this question at the same time, eh, rather, I do not\n> think we want to add a feature like this without thinking things\n> like the following through:\n>\n> How should this practice interact with commands like \"git log\n> --author=\", \"git shortlog\", and friends?\n>\n> Would projects accepting contributions signed like so want to have a\n> feature to easily strip the comments without having to add new\n> entries to their .mailmap every time a known contributor works for a\n> new client?\n>\n> And then there is a question of \"what shape of comment do we want?\n> is it OK for us to dictate that it comes after the author's human\n> readable name identity enclosed in parentheses?\".\n>\n> Shouldn't interpret-trailers be a good place to do this, instead of\n> a configuration option?\n\nAnother tangent. Stepping back a bit, these names and e-mail\naddresses come from:\n\n [user]\n\tname = Uwe Kleine-König\n\temail = u.kleine-koenig@...\n\nIt is plausible that a single user may want to use different\nidentities depending on where the identities are used. It may take\na form of three-level configuration variable name, i.e.,\n\n user..name\n user..email\n\nwhere obvious candidates for are things like \"author\"\n(used for commit author ident), \"committer\", and \"tagger\".\n\nIt is not too inconceivable to have an entry dedicated for\n\"sign-off\", perhaps in addition to the above user.{name,email}\nentries you already have in your $HOME/.gitconfig, you may throw\nsomething like this in the project .git/config file:\n\n [user \"sign-off\"]\n\tname = Uwe Kleine-König (Current Sponsor)\n\nident.c::fmt_ident() and ident.c::fmt_name() take \"enum want_ident\"\nthat lets our callers say \"I want AUTHOR_IDENT\" etc., and it would\nbe natural to extend the set of WANT_*_IDENT enumeration to support\nmore kind of names, if we really wanted to.\n\nHaving said that, wishing to be known under different identities to\ndifferent communities is one thing, but I am not yet convinced that\nit is a good idea to use different identities in a single project\ndepending where the ident appears.\n\nThanks.\n\n\n"}]}