Re: b4 review available in master

Michael S. Tsirkin
2026-03-02T09:30:58Z

On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 02:53:07PM -0500, Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote:
> Hi, all:
>
> TLDR: "b4 review" is a terminal UI that hopes to streamline a lot of
> maintainer duties. A getting-started guide with screencasts is here:
> https://b4.docs.kernel.org/en/latest/reviewer/getting-started.html
>
> It's available from b4 master pending initial testing and will be generally
> available in b4-0.15.

OK I just tried the "update" flow, and maybe it worked, thanks!
Though I was confused for a while.
I had this:

Date Status Submitter Subject
2026-02-28 reviewing Vishwanath Seshagiri virtio_net: add page_pool support for buffer allocation
2025-10-13 new Michael S. Tsirkin b4: sparse-checkout related fixes

(... lots of empty lines ...)

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Subject: [v8,0/1] virtio_net: add page_pool support for buffer allocation
From: Vishwanath Seshagiri <vishs@meta.com>
Sent: Sat, 28 Feb 2026 08:41:22 -0500
Change-ID: 20260228-virtio_net-add-page_pool-support-for-buffer-allocation-6273c5614ede
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260228134122.631580-1-vishs@meta.com
Revisions: v2, v3, v4, v5, v6, v7, v8, v9 (upgrade from v8 with [a]ction)
A/R/T: - / - / -
Branch: b4/review/20260228-virtio_net-add-page_pool-support-for-buffer-allocation-6273c5614ede
r review d range-diff a action ▏ u update l limit s shell q quit ? help ▏^p palette

So I was confused: I can see there is a v9 but why is it still showing me v8?
It took me a while until I noticed Revisions below and a while more
until I understood: this is intentional,
it means that yes it is v8 but v9 is available and if I press action
I can upgrade. Maybe putting a * near the current revision will help.
Maybe adding (upgrade to v9 with [a]ction) near v8 in the subject will
help.
Maybe showing "press a for [a]ction now to apply the upgrade" will help.

Maybe automatically triggering the correct action is the right thing?
I wonder why not.

"action" is also very generic. Maybe saying More [a]ctions in the menu will
better hint to the user it's like a ... and worth exploring.

Then I did "a" and I got a list of options none of which is "update"
or mentions v8 or v9. I guessed "rebase review branch" does it
and it seems to, but I have no idea why and what rebase
does it refer to:
┌───────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ Select action: │
│ Take (apply to branch) │
│ Rebase review branch │
│ Mark as waiting on new revision │
│ Abandon series │
│ Archive series │
│ │
└───────────────────────────────────────────┘

does it always update to latest revision? rename accordingly?
also actually saying what is rebased to what in the menu would have
helped.

Overall I was able to figure out things, and it worked!
The notes are here to maybe polish the UI even more.
Thanks!

--
MST