Re: [PATCH] gitk: add user-defined custom commands

From: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>
Date: Aug 9, 2026, 08:33 UTC
Message-ID: <00ed1592-b2cf-4844-8174-fb087fe0b0fe@kdbg.org>
In-Reply-To: <76636876b815ac4aaac77eb7b772e2e55234e11a.camel@gmx.net>

Am 07.08.26 um 23:39 schrieb Tim Wiederhake:

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> If I had proposed a patch to this effect, I am sure it would have been
> nack'd as too niche, wrong tool, or any other reason. But having the
> possibility to define custom commands allows users to adapt gitk to
> their workflow instead of the other way round. I am very open to
> suggestions on how to put this in the commit message without resorting
> to (contrieved) examples.

The reason why you were unable to sell the change better is that your change is a large set of features in a single commit. If you started small, it would be much easier to get off the ground.

For example, start with "I notice in the diff that a change is not quite right. Let me start an editor with the file loaded." That is a feature I can understand is useful.

Next, let the editor start with the cursor at a particular line! That's quite useful, too, but need not be part of the first step.

Then proceed to a use-case that needs to call `git rebase`.

But when it comes to author, committer, dates, or blame information as potential substitutions, you will have a much harder time to argue that they are useful. Move these features in their own patch. If you do have a use-case, mention it.

The gist of it is: make this a patch series that starts small and works its way forward with additional features in new commits. Don't add features just "because we can".

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> Regarding the use about AI: I used Claude to produce the initial
> implementation. I do not write Tcl, and frankly, this patch has not
> changed that. I have reworked the code - using Claude - until it was
> effectively the Tcl version of code I would have written myself in
> Python or C or any other language that I actually understand. Does that
> pass the bar?

I am not 100% sure. I take it that you understand what the added Tcl code does (that should not bee too difficult even if this is your first time doing Tcl). However, the Git project's guideline says:

> It’s not yet clear that this can be legally satisfied when 
> submitting significant amount of content that has been generated by
> AI tools.

So,... Any advice from the Git community would be appreciated.

-- Hannes