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

Breno Leitao
2026-01-29T15:00:53Z

Hello Mark,

On Thu, Jan 29, 2026 at 02:15:45PM +0000, Mark Brown wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 29, 2026 at 06:03:44AM -0800, Breno Leitao wrote:
> > On Thu, Jan 29, 2026 at 02:51:05PM +0100, Antonin Godard wrote:
>
> > > 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 think it's more a question about if you get merge commits, within the
> kernel that's very subsystem workflow dependent - a lot of subsystems
> have a fairly linear history, they just apply patch serieses on top of
> each other on a single branch so merges are very infrequent.

Thank you for the clarification. If I understand correctly, it would be
reasonable to add an option to b4 that skips generating a separate cover
letter for multi-patch series.

In this approach, the first patch would serve as the cover letter, and
all subsequent patches would reference it as their reply-to.