Re: b4: prep --edit-cover emits strange message about "Already Ran"

[Matthieu Baerts <matttbe@kernel.org>]

Hi Dave,

On 20/03/2026 15:41, Dave Marquardt wrote:
> I found the message here a little confusing, and had to go code
> spelunking to figure out what it might mean and how I should answer the
> Y/N question.
> 
>     $ b4 prep --edit-cover
>     Waiting for Emacs...
>     Invoking git-filter-repo to update the cover letter.
>     The previous run is older than a day (/home/davemarq/linux/linux/.git/worktrees/ibmvfc-fpin-bis/filter-repo/already_ran already exists).
>     See "Already Ran" section in the manual for more information.
>     Treat this run as a continuation of filtering in the previous run (Y/N)? n
>     New history written in 612.22 seconds...
>     Completely finished after 612.53 seconds.
>     Cover letter updated.
> 
> I first searched the b4 manual, and found nothing about "Already Ran".
> Eventually, on reading the b4 code in ez.py, I found this was from the
> git-filter-repo package and I should check its manual. I found the code.
> There's no way to opt out of this check and message.

Yes, there is: simply by removing the file. That's what b4 is doing for
a while, and it has been backported in the last stable version (0.14.3):


https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/b4/b4.git/commit/?h=stable-0.14.y&id=e5369681808b

Is it not working on your side? If no, which b4 version are you using?

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