Re: [PATCH v2 3/3] b4: introduce configuration for the Git project
- From
Toon Claes <toon@iotcl.com>
- Date
- Jun 3, 2026, 13:58 UTC
- Message-ID
- <87qzmn20a9.fsf@emacs.iotcl.com>
- In-Reply-To
- <20260603-pks-b4-v2-3-a8aea0aa2c23@pks.im>
Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im> writes:
Show 49 quoted lines
> We're about to extend our documentation to recommend b4 for sending > patch series to the mailing list. Prepare for this by introducing a b4 > configuration so that the tool knows to honor our preferences. For now, > this configuration does two things: > > - It configures "send-same-thread = shallow", which tells b4 to always > send subsequent versions of the same patch series as a reply to the > cover letter of the first version. > > - It configures "prep-cover-template", which tells b4 to use a custom > template for the cover letter. The most important change compared to > the default template is that our custom template also includes a > range-diff. > > There's potentially more things that we may want to configure going > forward, like for example auto-configuration of folks to Cc on certain > patches. But these two tweaks feel like a good place to start. > > Note that these values only serve as defaults, and users may want to > tweak those defaults based on their own preference. Luckily, users can > do that without having to touch `.b4-config` at all, as b4 allows them > to override values via Git configuration: > > ``` > $ git config set b4.prep-cover-template /does/not/exist > $ b4 send --dry-run > ERROR: prep-cover-template says to use x, but it does not exist > ``` > > So this gives users an easy way to override our defaults without having > to touch ".b4-config", which would dirty the tree. > > Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im> > --- > .b4-config | 6 ++++++ > .b4-cover-template | 11 +++++++++++ > 2 files changed, 17 insertions(+) > > diff --git a/.b4-config b/.b4-config > new file mode 100644 > index 0000000000..fd4fb56b6d > --- /dev/null > +++ b/.b4-config > @@ -0,0 +1,6 @@ > +# Note that these are default values that you can tweak via the typical > +# git-config(1) machinery. You thus shouldn't ever have to change this file. > +# See also https://b4.docs.kernel.org/en/latest/config.html. > +[b4] > +send-same-thread = shallow
Is it worth to note this requires v0.15 or higher?
That version was released only 2 months ago, I can imagine many distros still ship an older version, what happens if a version doesn't support this setting yet?
Show 23 quoted lines
> +prep-cover-template = ./.b4-cover-template
> diff --git a/.b4-cover-template b/.b4-cover-template
> new file mode 100644
> index 0000000000..ab864933b5
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/.b4-cover-template
> @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
> +${cover}
> +
> +---
> +${shortlog}
> +
> +${diffstat}
> +
> +${range_diff}
> +---
> +base-commit: ${base_commit}
> +${prerequisites}
>
> --
> 2.54.0.1064.gd145956f57.dirty
>
>-- Cheers, Toon