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Re: [PATCH v4 2/3] advice: introduce advice scoping mechanism

From
Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date
Sep 10, 2026, 20:11 UTC
Message-ID
<20260910201111.GA919731@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To
<xmqqh5jwevbm.fsf@gitster.g>
On Thu, Sep 10, 2026 at 12:54:21PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
Show 22 quoted lines
> Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:
> 
> > I kind of wonder if _all_ advice should just say "--global". I cannot
> > think of an advice flag that is really repo specific. They are about
> > silencing extra help because the _user_ understands the situation and
> > wants Git to be less chatty.
> 
> I think there are two things in play.
> 
>  * If applicability of a piece of advice depends on the workflow
>    employed, and a user who works on multiple projects that use
>    different workflows, set of advice messages may want to be
>    squelched per project, hence "--global" may not be appropriate.
> 
>  * "I, a physical single person, understand this piece of advice" is
>    inherently per user, so squelching a piece of advice that the
>    physical single person understands globally may make sense very
>    well.
> 
> In hindsight, the latter argument should have been given more
> weight, but I think the primary thinking back when we designed the
> customizable advice messages was instead the former.

Yeah, my contention is that the first thing doesn't really exist. But I admit I didn't carefully go through the list of advice looking for counter-examples.

I'd be surprised if anybody really thought carefully about it, though. When I introduced advice.* in 2009 (geez, has it really been that long?) I had assumed people would just set it in their user config. The actual "git config" command advice came much later, but I don't see any discussion of global vs local in that thread:

  https://lore.kernel.org/git/pull.548.git.1581311049547.gitgitgadget@gmail.com/

Amusingly that thread also touches on some of the "could we just convert everything to advise_if_enabled()" issues we've discussed here. I had zero recollection of it, despite participating.

-Peff
Previous: Junio C HamanoNext: Junio C Hamano
Message 19 of 30 in “advice: use global config for default branch name”
  1. advice: use global config for default branch nameVsevolod Myalitsin, Aug 29, 2027
  2. Jeff KingSep 9, 2026
  3. Junio C HamanoSep 9, 2026
  4. Vsevolod MyalitsinSep 9, 2026
  5. Jeff KingSep 9, 2026
  6. Vsevolod MyalitsinSep 10, 2026
  7. Junio C HamanoSep 9, 2026
  8. Vsevolod MyalitsinSep 9, 2026
  9. Junio C HamanoSep 9, 2026
  10. 0/3 defaultBranchName advice is uselessVsevolod Myalitsin, Sep 10, 2026
  11. 2/3 advice: introduce advice scoping mechanismVsevolod Myalitsin, Sep 10, 2026
  12. Junio C HamanoSep 10, 2026
  13. Jeff KingSep 10, 2026
  14. Vsevolod MyalitsinSep 10, 2026
  15. Jeff KingSep 10, 2026
  16. Junio C HamanoSep 10, 2026
  17. Jeff KingSep 10, 2026
  18. Junio C HamanoSep 10, 2026
  19. Jeff KingSep 10, 2026
  20. Junio C HamanoSep 10, 2026
  21. Vsevolod MyalitsinSep 12, 2026
  22. Junio C HamanoSep 13, 2026
  23. Jeff KingSep 14, 2026
  24. Junio C HamanoSep 14, 2026
  25. Junio C HamanoSep 14, 2026
  26. Vsevolod MyalitsinSep 17, 2026
  27. Jeff KingSep 17, 2026
  28. 3/3 advice: use global config for default branch nameVsevolod Myalitsin, Sep 10, 2026
  29. 1/3 advice: pass the entire advice_setting to vadvise()Vsevolod Myalitsin, Sep 10, 2026
  30. SZEDER GáborSep 10, 2026

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