Commit 127734e2 authored by Konstantin Ryabitsev's avatar Konstantin Ryabitsev Committed by Jonathan Corbet
Browse files

Documentation: best practices for using Link trailers 

Based on multiple conversations, most recently on the ksummit mailing
list [1], add some best practices for using the Link trailer, such as:

- how to use markdown-like bracketed numbers in the commit message to
indicate the corresponding link
- when to use lore.kernel.org vs patch.msgid.link domains

Cc: ksummit@lists.linux.dev
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/20240617-arboreal-industrious-hedgehog-5b84ae@meerkat

 # [1]
Signed-off-by: default avatarKonstantin Ryabitsev <konstantin@linuxfoundation.org>
Signed-off-by: default avatarJonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20240619-docs-patch-msgid-link-v2-2-72dd272bfe37@linuxfoundation.org
parent 413e775e

Documentation/process/maintainer-tip.rst

+22 −8
Original line number Diff line number Diff line
@@ -372,17 +372,31 @@ following tag ordering scheme: 


 - Link: ``https://link/to/information``



   For referring to an email on LKML or other kernel mailing lists,

   please use the lore.kernel.org redirector URL::

   For referring to an email posted to the kernel mailing lists, please

   use the lore.kernel.org redirector URL::



     https://lore.kernel.org/r/email-message@id

     Link: https://lore.kernel.org/email-message-id@here



   The kernel.org redirector is considered a stable URL, unlike other email

   archives.

   This URL should be used when referring to relevant mailing list

   topics, related patch sets, or other notable discussion threads.

   A convenient way to associate ``Link:`` trailers with the commit

   message is to use markdown-like bracketed notation, for example::



   Maintainers will add a Link tag referencing the email of the patch

   submission when they apply a patch to the tip tree. This tag is useful

   for later reference and is also used for commit notifications.

     A similar approach was attempted before as part of a different

     effort [1], but the initial implementation caused too many

     regressions [2], so it was backed out and reimplemented.



     Link: https://lore.kernel.org/some-msgid@here # [1]

     Link: https://bugzilla.example.org/bug/12345  # [2]



   You can also use ``Link:`` trailers to indicate the origin of the

   patch when applying it to your git tree. In that case, please use the

   dedicated ``patch.msgid.link`` domain instead of ``lore.kernel.org``.

   This practice makes it possible for automated tooling to identify

   which link to use to retrieve the original patch submission. For

   example::



     Link: https://patch.msgid.link/patch-source-message-id@here



Please do not use combined tags, e.g. ``Reported-and-tested-by``, as

they just complicate automated extraction of tags.