Re: [PATCH b4] send: Add --force-cover-letter to send separate cover for single patch patch series

Breno Leitao
2026-01-29T14:03:53Z

On Thu, Jan 29, 2026 at 02:51:05PM +0100, Antonin Godard wrote:
> On Thu Jan 29, 2026 at 2:21 PM CET, Breno Leitao wrote:
> [...]
> >> I do find myself needing the last use-case sometimes, when the series does
> >> not require a cover-letter.
> >
> > Why do you need this case? I undertand a cover letter is required for
> > a multi patch series, so, it can have an easy merge commit when merging
> > the series.
>
> Some project ignore merge commits altogether, so I regularly see series without
> cover letters. Are merge commits that frequent?

The trees I am familiar with, they add the cover letter to the merge
commit, which I personally think this is a good practice, but I am quite
sure we don't do it everywhere.

> I'm not judging on whether it's good practice or not, but introducing
> a --force-cover-letter option would maybe not leave room for having
> such a use-case in the future.

Agree. I am wondering if b4 maintainers want to have this possibility.
Let's see what Konstantin has to say.