aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/Documentation/SubmittingPatches (follow)
AgeCommit message (Collapse)AuthorFilesLines
2025-11-04Merge branch 'cc/doc-submitting-patches-with-ai'Junio C Hamano1-0/+28
AI guidelines. * cc/doc-submitting-patches-with-ai: SubmittingPatches: add section about AI
2025-10-07SubmittingPatches: guidance for multi-series effortsTaylor Blau1-0/+8
Occasionally there are efforts to contribute to the Git project that span more than one patch series in order to achieve a broader goal. By convention, the maintainer has typically suffixed the topic names with "-part-one", or "-part-1" and so on. Document that convention and suggest some guidance on how to structure proposed topic names for multi-series efforts. Suggested-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> Signed-off-by: Taylor Blau <me@ttaylorr.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2025-10-07SubmittingPatches: extend release-notes experiment to topic namesTaylor Blau1-8/+13
In d255105c99 (SubmittingPatches: release-notes entry experiment, 2024-03-25), we began an experiment to have contributors suggest a topic description to appear in our RelNotes and "What's cooking?" reports. Extend that experiment to also welcome suggested topic branch names in addition to descriptions. Suggested-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> Signed-off-by: Taylor Blau <me@ttaylorr.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2025-10-01SubmittingPatches: add section about AIChristian Couder1-0/+28
As more and more developer tools use AI, we are facing two main risks related to AI generated content: - its situation regarding copyright and license is not clear, and: - more and more bad quality content could be submitted for review to the mailing list. To mitigate both risks, let's add an "Use of Artificial Intelligence" section to "Documentation/SubmittingPatches" with the goal of discouraging its blind use to generate content that is submitted to the project, while still allowing us to benefit from its help in some innovative, useful and less risky ways. Helped-by: Rick Sanders <rick@sfconservancy.org> Signed-off-by: Christian Couder <chriscool@tuxfamily.org> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2025-07-16SubmittingPatches: allow non-real name contributionsbrian m. carlson1-2/+9
Our submission guidelines require people to use their real name, but this is not always suitable for various reasons. For people who are transgender or non-binary and are transitioning or who think they might want to transition, it can be a major obstacle and cause major discomfort to require the use of their real name. This is made worse by the fact that Git provides no way to change names built into history, so the use of a deadname is forever. Our code of conduct states that we "pledge to act and interact in ways that contribute to an open, welcoming, diverse, inclusive, and healthy community," and changing this policy is one way we can improve things for contributors. In addition, there are some developers who are so widely known pseudonymously that they have a Wikipedia page with their handle and no real name. It would seem silly to reject patches from people who are known and respected in their open-source community just because they don't wish to share a real name. There are also other good reasons why people might operate pseudonymously: because they or their family members are well known and they wish to protect their privacy, because of current or past harassment or retaliation or fear of that happening in the future, or because of concerns about unwanted attention from government officials or other authority figures. As much as possible, we want to welcome contributions from anyone who is willing to participate positively in our community without having them worry about their safety or privacy. In all of these cases, we should allow people to proceed using a preferred name or pseudonymously if, in their best judgment, that's the right thing to do. State that it is common to use a real name but explicitly mention that contributors who are not comfortable doing so or prefer to operate pseudonymously or under a preferred name can proceed otherwise, provided the name is distinctive, identifying, and not misleading. For instance, using U+2060 (WORD JOINER) as one's ID would likely be distinctive but not identifying, since most people would have trouble reading it due to its zero-width nature. We prohibit identities which are misleading, since our goal is to create a community which works together with a common goal, and misleading or deceiving others is not conducive to good community or compatible with our code of conduct, nor is it compatible with making a legal assertion about the provenance of one's code. Explicitly prohibit anonymous contributions to ensure that we have some line of provenance to a known (if pseudonymous) author who might be able to respond to questions about it. Explain that this is the reason we have this policy to help contributors understand the rationale better. Use "some form of your real name" since some current contributors use shortened forms of their name or use initials, which have always been considered acceptable. This helps guide people who would be fine using their real name but have misconfigured `user.name` thinking it is intended to be a username or is used for authentication (despite our documentation to the contrary), but also allows for a variety of circumstances where the contributor would feel more comfortable not doing so. Note that this policy is the same as that of the Linux kernel[0] and the CNCF[1], as well as many smaller projects. The Linux kernel patch was Acked-by one of the Linux Foundation's lawyers, Michael Dolan, so it appears these changes have had legal review. Additionally, retain the section header ID for ease of linking across versions. [0] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=d4563201f33a022fc0353033d9dfeb1606a88330 [1] https://github.com/cncf/foundation/blob/659fd32c86dc/dco-guidelines.md Signed-off-by: brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2024-12-28Merge branch 'as/gitk-git-gui-repo-update'Junio C Hamano1-5/+6
The developer documentation has been updated to give the latest info on gitk and git-gui maintainer. * as/gitk-git-gui-repo-update: Update the official repo of gitk
2024-12-26Update the official repo of gitkAlexander Shopov1-5/+6
Point out: - current maintaner - contribution flow is via the mailing list Signed-off-by: Alexander Shopov <ash@kambanaria.org> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2024-10-21SubmittingPatches: tags -> trailersKristoffer Haugsbakk1-3/+3
“Trailer” is the preferred nomenclature in this project. Also add a definite article where I think it makes sense. As we can see the rest of the document already prefers this term. This just gets rid of the last stragglers. Signed-off-by: Kristoffer Haugsbakk <code@khaugsbakk.name> Signed-off-by: Taylor Blau <me@ttaylorr.com>
2024-05-28Merge branch 'kn/patch-iteration-doc'Junio C Hamano1-0/+79
Doc updates. * kn/patch-iteration-doc: SubmittingPatches: add section for iterating patches
2024-05-28Merge branch 'jc/doc-manpages-l10n'Junio C Hamano1-0/+7
The SubmittingPatches document now refers folks to manpages translation project. * jc/doc-manpages-l10n: SubmittingPatches: advertise git-manpages-l10n project a bit
2024-05-23Merge branch 'jc/patch-flow-updates'Junio C Hamano1-51/+70
Doc updates. * jc/patch-flow-updates: SubmittingPatches: extend the "flow" section SubmittingPatches: move the patch-flow section earlier
2024-05-17SubmittingPatches: advertise git-manpages-l10n project a bitJunio C Hamano1-0/+7
The project takes our AsciiDoc sources of documentation and actively maintains the translations to various languages. Let's give them enhanced visibility to help those who want to volunteer find them. Acked-by: Jean-Noël Avila <jn.avila@free.fr> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2024-05-17SubmittingPatches: add section for iterating patchesKarthik Nayak1-0/+79
Add a section to explain how to work around other in-flight patches and how to navigate conflicts which arise as a series is being iterated. This provides the necessary steps that users can follow to reduce friction with other ongoing topics and also provides guidelines on how the users can also communicate this to the list efficiently. Co-authored-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> Suggested-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> Signed-off-by: Karthik Nayak <karthik.188@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2024-05-17Merge branch 'jc/patch-flow-updates' into kn/patch-iteration-docJunio C Hamano1-51/+70
* jc/patch-flow-updates: SubmittingPatches: extend the "flow" section SubmittingPatches: move the patch-flow section earlier
2024-05-13Merge branch 'jc/git-gui-maintainer-update'Junio C Hamano1-2/+2
* jc/git-gui-maintainer-update: SubmittingPatches: welcome the new maintainer of git-gui part
2024-05-11SubmittingPatches: welcome the new maintainer of git-gui partJunio C Hamano1-2/+2
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2024-05-10SubmittingPatches: extend the "flow" sectionJunio C Hamano1-42/+61
Explain a full lifecycle of a patch series upfront, so that it is clear when key decisions to "accept" a series is made and how a new patch series becomes a part of a new release. Fold the "you need to monitor the progress of your topic" section into the primary "patch lifecycle" section, as that is one of the things the patch submitter is responsible for. It is not like "I sent a patch and responded to review messages, and now it is their problem". They need to see their patch through the patch life cycle. Earlier versions of this document outlined a slightly different patch flow in an idealized world, where the original submitter gathered agreements from the participants of the discussion and sent the final "we all agreed that this is the good version--please apply" patches to the maintainer. In practice, this almost never happened. Instead, describe what flow was used in practice for the past decade that worked well for us. Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2024-05-10SubmittingPatches: move the patch-flow section earlierJunio C Hamano1-49/+49
Before discussing the small details of how the patch gets sent, we'd want to give people a larger picture first to set the expectation straight. The existing patch-flow section covers materials that are suitable for that purpose, so move it to the beginning of the document. We'll update the contents of the section to clarify what goal the patch submitter is working towards in the next step, which will make it easier to understand the reason behind the individual rules presented in latter parts of the document. This step only moves two sections (patch-flow and patch-status) without changing their contents, except that their section levels are demoted from Level 1 to Level 2 to fit better in the document structure at their new place. Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2024-05-08Merge branch 'jt/doc-submitting-rerolled-series'Junio C Hamano1-4/+6
Developer doc update. * jt/doc-submitting-rerolled-series: doc: clarify practices for submitting updated patch versions
2024-04-30Merge branch 'la/doc-use-of-contacts-when-contributing'Junio C Hamano1-30/+42
Advertise "git contacts", a tool for newcomers to find people to ask review for their patches, a bit more in our developer documentation. * la/doc-use-of-contacts-when-contributing: SubmittingPatches: demonstrate using git-contacts with git-send-email SubmittingPatches: add heading for format-patch and send-email SubmittingPatches: dedupe discussion of security patches SubmittingPatches: discuss reviewers first SubmittingPatches: quote commands SubmittingPatches: mention GitGitGadget SubmittingPatches: clarify 'git-contacts' location MyFirstContribution: mention contrib/contacts/git-contacts
2024-04-25doc: clarify practices for submitting updated patch versionsJustin Tobler1-4/+6
The `SubmittingPatches` documentation briefly mentions that related patches should be grouped together in their own e-mail thread. Expand on this to explicitly state that updated versions of a patch series should also follow this. Also provide add a link to existing documentation from `MyFirstContribution` that provides detailed instructions on how to do this via `git-send-email(1)`. Signed-off-by: Justin Tobler <jltobler@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2024-04-18SubmittingPatches: demonstrate using git-contacts with git-send-emailLinus Arver1-0/+7
Signed-off-by: Linus Arver <linusa@google.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2024-04-18SubmittingPatches: add heading for format-patch and send-emailLinus Arver1-0/+2
Signed-off-by: Linus Arver <linusa@google.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2024-04-18SubmittingPatches: dedupe discussion of security patchesLinus Arver1-11/+4
Signed-off-by: Linus Arver <linusa@google.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2024-04-18SubmittingPatches: discuss reviewers firstLinus Arver1-32/+34
No matter how well someone configures their email tooling, understanding who to send the patches to is something that must always be considered. So discuss it first instead of at the end. In the following commit we will clean up the (now redundant) discussion about sending security patches to the Git Security mailing list. Signed-off-by: Linus Arver <linusa@google.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2024-04-18SubmittingPatches: quote commandsLinus Arver1-1/+1
Signed-off-by: Linus Arver <linusa@google.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2024-04-18SubmittingPatches: mention GitGitGadgetLinus Arver1-0/+4
Signed-off-by: Linus Arver <linusa@google.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2024-04-18SubmittingPatches: clarify 'git-contacts' locationLinus Arver1-2/+6
Use a dash ("git-contacts", not "git contacts") because the script is not installed as part of "git" toolset. This also puts the script on one line, which should make it easier to grep for with a loose search query, such as $ git grep git.contacts Documentation Also add a footnote to describe where the script is located, to help readers who may not be familiar with such "contrib" scripts (and how they are not accessible with the usual "git <subcommand>" syntax). Signed-off-by: Linus Arver <linusa@google.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2024-03-26SubmittingPatches: release-notes entry experimentJunio C Hamano1-0/+12
The "What's cooking" report lists the topics in flight, with a short paragraph descibing what they are about. Once written, the description is automatically picked up from the "What's cooking" report and used in the commit log message of the merge commit when the topic is merged into integration branches. These commit log messges of the merge commits are then propagated to the release notes. It has been the maintainer's task to prepare these entries in the "What's cooking" report. Even though the original author of a topic may be in the best position to write the initial description of a topic, we so far lacked a formal channel for the author to suggest what description to use. The usual procedure has been for the author to see the topic described in "What's cooking" report, and then either complain about inaccurate explanation and/or offer a rewrite. Let's try an experiment to optionally let the author propose the one paragraph description when the topic is submitted. Pick the cover letter as the logical place to do so, and describe an experimental workflow in the SubmittingPatches document. Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2023-12-27SubmittingPatches: hyphenate non-ASCIIJosh Soref1-1/+1
Git documentation does this with the exception of ancient release notes. Signed-off-by: Josh Soref <jsoref@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2023-12-27SubmittingPatches: clarify GitHub artifact formatJosh Soref1-1/+2
GitHub wraps artifacts generated by workflows in a .zip file. Internally, workflows can package anything they like in them. A recently generated failure artifact had the form: windows-artifacts.zip Length Date Time Name --------- ---------- ----- ---- 76001695 12-19-2023 01:35 artifacts.tar.gz 11005650 12-19-2023 01:35 tracked.tar.gz --------- ------- 87007345 2 files Signed-off-by: Josh Soref <jsoref@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2023-12-27SubmittingPatches: clarify GitHub visualJosh Soref1-5/+5
GitHub has two general forms for its states, sometimes they're a simple colored object (e.g. green check or red x), and sometimes there's also a colored container (e.g. green box or red circle) which contains that object (e.g. check or x). That's a lot of words to try to describe things, but in general, the key for a failure is that it's recognized as an `x` and that it's associated with the color red -- the color of course is problematic for people who are red-green color-blind, but that's why they are paired with distinct shapes. Signed-off-by: Josh Soref <jsoref@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2023-12-27SubmittingPatches: provide tag naming adviceJosh Soref1-0/+3
Current statistics show a strong preference to only capitalize the first letter in a hyphenated tag, but that some guidance would be helpful: git log | perl -ne 'next unless /^\s+(?:Signed-[oO]ff|Acked)-[bB]y:/; s/^\s+//;s/:.*/:/;print'| sort|uniq -c|sort -n 2 Signed-off-By: 4 Signed-Off-by: 22 Acked-By: 47 Signed-Off-By: 2202 Acked-by: 95315 Signed-off-by: Signed-off-by: Josh Soref <jsoref@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2023-12-27SubmittingPatches: update extra tags listJosh Soref1-0/+8
Add items with at least 100 uses in the past three years: - Co-authored-by - Helped-by - Mentored-by - Suggested-by git log --since=3.years| perl -ne 'next unless /^\s+[A-Z][a-z]+-\S+:/;s/^\s+//;s/:.*/:/;print'| sort|uniq -c|sort -n|grep '[0-9][0-9] ' 14 Based-on-patch-by: 14 Original-patch-by: 17 Tested-by: 100 Suggested-by: 121 Co-authored-by: 163 Mentored-by: 274 Reported-by: 290 Acked-by: 450 Helped-by: 602 Reviewed-by: 14111 Signed-off-by: Signed-off-by: Josh Soref <jsoref@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2023-12-27SubmittingPatches: discourage new trailersJosh Soref1-2/+3
There seems to be consensus amongst the core Git community on a working set of common trailers, and there are non-trivial costs to people inventing new trailers (research to discover what they mean/how they differ from existing trailers) such that inventing new ones is generally unwarranted and not something to be recommended to new contributors. Suggested-by: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Josh Soref <jsoref@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2023-12-27SubmittingPatches: drop ref to "What's in git.git"Josh Soref1-1/+1
"What's in git.git" was last seen in 2010: https://lore.kernel.org/git/?q=%22what%27s+in+git.git%22 https://lore.kernel.org/git/7vaavikg72.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org/ Signed-off-by: Josh Soref <jsoref@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2023-11-07Merge branch 'ar/submitting-patches-doc-update'Junio C Hamano1-1/+1
Doc update. * ar/submitting-patches-doc-update: SubmittingPatches: call gitk's command "Copy commit reference"
2023-10-30Merge branch 'sn/typo-grammo-phraso-fixes'Junio C Hamano1-5/+5
Many typos, ungrammatical sentences and wrong phrasing have been fixed. * sn/typo-grammo-phraso-fixes: t/README: fix multi-prerequisite example doc/gitk: s/sticked/stuck/ git-jump: admit to passing merge mode args to ls-files doc/diff-options: improve wording of the log.diffMerges mention doc: fix some typos, grammar and wording issues
2023-10-24SubmittingPatches: call gitk's command "Copy commit reference"Andrei Rybak1-1/+1
Documentation/SubmittingPatches informs the contributor that gitk's context menu command "Copy commit summary" can be used to obtain the conventional format of referencing existing commits. This command in gitk was renamed to "Copy commit reference" in commit [1], following implementation of Git's "reference" pretty format in [2]. Update mention of this gitk command in Documentation/SubmittingPatches to its new name. [1] b8b60957ce (gitk: rename "commit summary" to "commit reference", 2019-12-12) [2] commit 1f0fc1d (pretty: implement 'reference' format, 2019-11-20) Signed-off-by: Andrei Rybak <rybak.a.v@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2023-10-09documentation: use clearer prepositionsElijah Newren1-1/+1
Diff best viewed with --color-diff. Signed-off-by: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2023-10-05doc: fix some typos, grammar and wording issuesŠtěpán Němec1-5/+5
Signed-off-by: Štěpán Němec <stepnem@smrk.net> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2023-07-27SubmittingPatches: use of older maintenance tracks is an exceptionJunio C Hamano1-6/+13
While we could technically fix each and every bug on top of the commit that introduced it, it is not necessarily practical. For trivial and low-value bugfixes, it often is simpler and sufficient to just fix it in the current maintenance track, leaving the bug unfixed in the older maintenance tracks. Demote the "use older maintenance track to fix old bugs" as a side note, and explain that the choice is used only in exceptional cases. Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2023-07-27SubmittingPatches: explain why 'next' and above are inappropriate baseJunio C Hamano1-4/+8
The 'next' branch is primarily meant to be a testing ground to make sure that topics that are reasonably well done work well together. Building a new work on it would mean everything that was already in 'next' must have graduated to 'master' before the new work can also be merged to 'master', and that is why we do not encourage basing new work on 'next'. Helped-by: Linus Arver <linusa@google.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2023-07-26SubmittingPatches: choice of base for fixing an older maintenance trackJunio C Hamano1-1/+6
When working on an high-value bugfix that must be given to ancient maintenance tracks, a starting point that is older than `maint` may have to be chosen. Helped-by: Linus Arver <linusa@google.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2023-07-14SubmittingPatches: simplify guidance for choosing a starting pointLinus Arver1-28/+68
Background: The guidance to "base your work on the oldest branch that your change is relevant to" was added in d0c26f0f56 (SubmittingPatches: Add new section about what to base work on, 2010-04-19). That commit also added the bullet points which describe the scenarios where one would use one of the following named branches: "maint", "master", "next", and "seen" ("pu" in the original as that was the name of this branch before it was renamed, per 828197de8f (docs: adjust for the recent rename of `pu` to `seen`, 2020-06-25)). The guidance was probably taken from existing similar language introduced in the "Merge upwards" section of gitworkflows in f948dd8992 (Documentation: add manpage about workflows, 2008-10-19). Summary: This change simplifies the guidance by pointing users to just "maint" or "master". But it also gives an explanation of why that is preferred and what is meant by preferring "older" branches (which might be confusing to some because "old" here is meant in relative terms between these named branches, not in terms of the age of the branches themselves). We also add an example to illustrate why it would be a bad idea to use "next" as a starting point, which may not be so obvious to new contributors. Helped-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> Helped-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> Signed-off-by: Linus Arver <linusa@google.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2023-07-14SubmittingPatches: emphasize need to communicate non-default starting pointsLinus Arver1-3/+6
The phrase and unless it targets the `master` branch (which is the default), mark your patches as such. is tightly packed with several things happening in just two lines of text. It also feels like it is not that important because of the terse treatment. This is a problem because (1) it has the potential to confuse new contributors, and (2) it may be glossed over for those skimming the docs. Emphasize and elaborate on this guidance by promoting it to its own separate paragraph. Signed-off-by: Linus Arver <linusa@google.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2023-07-14SubmittingPatches: de-emphasize branches as starting pointsLinus Arver1-4/+4
It could be that a suitable branch does not exist, so instead just use the phrase "starting point". Technically speaking the starting point would be a commit (not a branch) anyway. Helped-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> Signed-off-by: Linus Arver <linusa@google.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2023-07-14SubmittingPatches: discuss subsystems separately from git.gitLinus Arver1-4/+4
The discussion around subsystems disrupts the flow of discussion in the surrounding area, which only deals with starting points used for the git.git project. So move this bullet point out to the end. Signed-off-by: Linus Arver <linusa@google.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2023-07-14SubmittingPatches: reword awkward phrasingLinus Arver1-2/+2
Signed-off-by: Linus Arver <linusa@google.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2023-04-05SubmittingPatches: clarify MUA discussion with "the"Daniel Watson1-1/+1
Without the word "the", the sentence is a little harder to read. The word "the" makes it clearer that the comment refers to discrete patches, and not portions of individual patches. Signed-off-by: Daniel Watson <ozzloy@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>