Re: [PATCH b4] config: accept prep-pre-flight-checks from .b4-config

[Matthieu Baerts <matttbe@kernel.org>]

Hi Clément,

On 10/07/2026 17:14, Clément Le Goffic wrote:
> The .b4-config file is a convenient way to share project-level b4
> configuration among contributors via version control.  However, only
> keys matching a set of glob patterns are currently accepted from it
> (see wtglobs in _setup_main_config).
> 
> The prep-pre-flight-checks key, which controls which pre-flight
> checks are enabled or disabled before sending a series, is not
> matched by any of the existing patterns.  The closest glob,
> 'prep-*-check-cmd', only matches keys ending in '-check-cmd', not
> '-checks'.  As a result, setting prep-pre-flight-checks in
> .b4-config has no effect: the value is silently dropped and the
> default 'enable-all' is used instead.
> 
> Add 'prep-pre-flight-checks' to the wtglobs list so it can be set
> from .b4-config, allowing projects to disable checks (e.g.
> needs-checking, needs-auto-to-cc) that are not relevant to their
> workflow and share that decision via version control.
I don't remember if it was present in this list for security reasons --
similar to *-check-cmd at some points [1] -- but I do remember a bug
report with the same patch [2] which has never been applied.

On my side, I think it would be useful to be able to use
"disable-needs-auto-to-cc" on some specific dev tree of a
"sub-subsystem". On these dev branches, no need to add extra reviewers
from the "parent" subsystem.

We could then have this config:

    [b4]
        send-series-to = <dev ML>
        prep-pre-flight-checks = disable-needs-auto-to-cc
        send-prefixes = <specific dev prefix>

[1] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/b4/b4.git/commit/?id=a1360385
[2] https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=219705

Cheers,
Matt
-- 
Sponsored by the NGI0 Core fund.