Re: [RFC PATCH] format-patch: Add config option format.coverbodytext to change the cover letter body

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jan 6, 2015, 10:37 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqzj9wp52y.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <1420486105-30242-1-git-send-email-sbeller@google.com>

Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com> writes:

> When sending out patch series one of the last things doing is writing
> the cover letter. The cover letter would be a good place to remind
> people to check the todo list for sending patches.

I do not quite understand.  Wouldn't a check-list be useful _before_
you start series of things (I am assuming that you meant a list like
1. run spell check; 2. run checkpatch; 3. run full test suite;
4. format the docs for HTML and manpage)?  Time to write cover
letter (or running format-patch in general) is way too late for
many of these things.

There may be a check-list that is still useful after commits to be sent are perfect and ready to be formatted. "Describe change since the last round after three-dash line." would be one of them ("Sign-off the patch" is not---without one, the commits would not have been perfect yet). But for such a check-list, wouldn't we want remainder not only on the cover but on each individual patch?

Perhaps --add-header="x-reminder: what changed since the last?" would be sufficient for your purpose instead?