git series tracks changes to a patch series over time. git series also tracks a cover letter for the patch series, formats the series for email, and prepares pull requests.

Manpage for git-series

About git-series

A patch series typically goes through multiple iterations before submission; the path from idea to RFC to [PATCHv12 1/8] includes many invocations of git rebase -i. However, while Git tracks and organizes commits quite well, it doesn't actually track changes to a patch series at all, outside of the ephemeral reflog. This makes it a challenge to collaborate on a patch series, distribution package, backport, or any other development process that includes rebasing or non-fast-forward development.

Typically, tracking the evolution of a patch series over time involves moving part of the version control outside of git. You can move the patch series from git into quilt or a distribution package, and then version the patch files with git, losing the power of git's tools. Or, you can keep the patch series in git, and version it via multiple named branches; however, names like feature-v2, feature-v3-typofix, and feature-v8-rebased-4.6-alice-fix sound like filenames from corporate email, not modern version control. And either way, git doesn't track your cover letter at all.

git-series tracks both a patch series and its evolution within the same git repository. git-series works entirely with existing git features, allowing git to push and pull a series to any git repository along with other branches and tags. git-series also tracks a cover letter for the patch series, formats the series for email, and prepares pull requests.

As you change a patch series, git-series can show diffs between versions, finding and showing the correspondence between the old and new versions of each commit, even after changing or rebasing those commits. The series diff format shows corresponding old and new commits side-by-side, with interdiffs for modified commits.

Building and installing

git-series is written in Rust. You'll need both Rust and Cargo installed to build it. If your OS distribution includes packages for Rust and Cargo, start by installing those (for instance, on Debian, apt install rustc cargo). If your distribution doesn't have packages of Rust and Cargo, or has an outdated version (which may result in build errors), you can download the stable version of Rust and Cargo from the rust-lang.org download page.

With Rust and Cargo installed, you can download and install the latest release of git-series with:

cargo install --root ~/.local git-series

This will install git-series into ~/.local/bin/git-series. If you don't already have ~/.local/bin on your $PATH, you may want to add it there, or change the --root. You may also want to install the included manpage, git-series.1, into ~/.local/share/man/man1/git-series.1.

If you'd like to package git-series for your distribution, please contact me.

Overview of commands

• Use git series start seriesname to start a patch series seriesname.

• Use git series base somecommit to set the base commit for the series. (This is the upstream commit you based the series on, not the first patch in the series.)

• Use normal git commands to commit changes.

• Use git series rebase -i to help rework or reorganize the patch series.

• Use git series status to check what has changed.

• Use git series diff to show the changes to the patch series as a diff.

• Use git series cover to add or edit a cover letter.

• Use git series add and git series commit (or git series commit -a) to commit changes to the patch series. You can do this whenever you've changed the base or cover letter, or whenever you've changed HEAD to a new commit. Make a series commit whenever you've made a semantic change to the patch series that you want to record, such as rebasing on a new upstream version, reorganizing patches, or incorporating feedback.

• Use git series format to prepare the patch series to send via email, or use git series req to prepare a "please pull" mail (after pushing the changes to a repository as a branch or tag).

Workflow example

Suppose you want to write a patch series implementing a new feature for a project. You already have a local git clone of the repository. You could start a branch for this patch series, but it may take multiple iterations before upstream accepts it, and you may need to use rebase or amend to fix commits; a branch can't track that. With git-series, you'll develop the patch series as you normally would, including rebases, and periodically git series commit the state of the patch series, complete with a commit message explaining what you've changed. Even if you rebase the patch series, or make some other change that doesn't fast-forward, git-series will track those changes with a branch that does fast-forward, so you can easily share and review the history of your patch series.

Developing or importing the first version

To start the patch series, first run git series start featurename. featurename here specifies the name for the series, just as you'd specify the name of a branch.

A patch series needs some base to build on, identifying the upstream commit you want to develop from. This will become the parent of the first patch in your series. If you want to base your patch series on the current version, run git series base HEAD. If you want to base this patch series on some other commit, such as a released version, first check out that commit with git checkout thecommit, then run git series base HEAD.

You can then develop the patch series as usual, committing patches with git.

If you've already started on the patch series and made some commits, you can still adopt the current version of the patch series into git-series. Find the parent commit of the first patch in your series, and run git series base thatcommit.

As with git, you can run git series status at any time to see the current state of the series, including changes you might want to commit, and the next step to run. After the above steps, git series status should show base and series modified; running git series base set the base in the "working" version, and series in the working version always refers to HEAD (the current git commit you have checked out).

Now that you've written an initial version of the patch series (or you already wrote it before you started using git-series), you can commit that version to git-series. Run git series commit -a to commit the series. This will run your editor so you can provide a series commit message (e.g. "Initial version of feature" or "Import feature into git-series").

If your patch series include multiple patches, you may want to add a cover letter. Run git series cover to edit the cover letter, then git series commit -a -m 'Add cover letter' to commit that change to the series.

Now that you have the first version of the patch series, you can format it as a series of emails with git series format.

Developing v2

You send the patch series by email, and you get feedback from the maintainers: the concept looks good, but you need to split one of the patches into two, and add benchmark results in another commit's commit message.

Run git series rebase -i, and split the commit (mark it for 'e'dit, git reset -N HEAD^, repeatedly git add -p and git commit, then git rebase --continue). Then, commit that change to the series: git series commit -a -m 'Split out X change into a separate patch'

Then, run git series rebase -i again to add the benchmark results (mark the commit for 'r'eword), and commit that change: git series commit -a -m 'Add benchmark results'.

You may want to document the changes in the cover letter: run git series cover, document the changes, and git series commit -a -m 'Update cover letter for v2'. (Alternatively, you can incrementally add to the cover letter along with each change to the series.)

Now that you have v2 of the patch series, you can format it as a new series of emails with git series format -v 2.