Provided by: aerc_0.20.0-1_amd64 
NAME
aerc-patch - local patch management for aerc(1)
SYNOPSIS
aerc provides support for managing local patch sets. In an email-based software development workflow,
there are usually many different locally applied patch series for testing and reviewing. Managing the
local repository can thus be challenging. With the local patch management system, aerc facilitates this
bookkeeping process.
When applying a patch set, aerc creates a tag for those commits. With this tag, the patch set can be
tracked and later dropped if needed. Patches are stored in a project data structure which also keeps
track of the directory where the repository is. Multiple code bases can be tracked by defining a separate
project for each.
COMMANDS
The following :patch sub-commands are supported:
:patch init [-f] [<project>]
Creates a new project <project>. If <project> is not defined, aerc will use the last element of the
current directory path. It also performs a search for a supported repository in the current
directory.
-f: Overwrite an existing project.
:patch list [-a]
:patch ls [-a]
Lists the current project with the tracked patch sets.
-a: Lists all projects.
:patch apply [-c <cmd>] [-w <commit-ish>] <tag>
Applies the selected message(s) to the repository of the current project. It uses the :pipe command
for this and keeps track of the applied patch.
Completions for the <tag> are available based on the subject lines of the selected or marked
messages.
-c <cmd>: Apply patches with the provided <cmd>. Any occurrence of '%r' in the command string will be
replaced with the root directory of the current project. Note that this approach is not recommended
in general and should only be used for very specific purposes, i.e. when a maintainer is applying a
patch set via a separate script to deal with git trailers.
aerc will propose completions for the <tag> based on the subject lines of the selected or marked
messages.
Example:
:patch apply -c "git -C %r am -3" fix_v2
-w <commit-ish>: Create a linked worktree for the current project at <commit-ish> and apply the
patches to the linked worktree. A new project is created to store the worktree information. When this
project is deleted, the worktree will be deleted as well.
Example:
:patch apply -w origin/master fix_v2
:patch drop <tag>
Drops the patch <tag> from the repository.
:patch rebase [<commit-ish>]
Rebases the patch data on commit <commit-ish>.
If the <commit-ish> is omitted, aerc will use the base commit of the current project for the rebase.
:patch find [-f] <commit-hash>
Searches the messages in the current folder of the current account for the message associated with
this commit hash based on the subject line.
If a Message-ID is linked to a commit (i.e. when :patch apply was used) then find will first perform
a search for the Message-ID.
-f: Filter the message list instead of just showing the search results. Only effective when search
for Message-ID was not successful.
:patch cd
Changes the working directory to the root directory of the current project.
:patch term [<cmd>]
Opens a shell (or runs <cmd>) in the working directory of the current project.
:patch switch <project>
Switches the context to <project>.
:patch unlink [<project>]
Deletes all patch tracking data for <project> and unlinks it from a repository. If no project is
provided, the current project is deleted.
:patch
Root command for path management. Use it to run the sub-commands.
GETTING STARTED
Make sure you have an initialized project (see :patch init).
Now, there are two ways to get patches under the local patch management system:
• Apply patches with the :patch apply command. This will automatically create a new tag for the applied
commits.
• Use :patch rebase. If there are some existing local patches in the commit history that should be
managed by aerc, you can run :patch rebase <commit-ish> and set the <commit-ish> to the commit before
the first patch that you want to include. For a git repository which has an upstream called origin,
you would run :patch rebase origin/master.
EXAMPLE
The following example demonstrates how to manage the local patch sets.
First, a project needs to be initialized. This is done by changing into the working directory where the
project's repository is located. For this example, let's assume we have a project called bar in the
directory /home/user/foo/bar.
:cd /home/user/foo/bar
and then creating a new project with
:patch init
If no name is provided to :patch init, aerc will use the last element of the working directory path
(here: bar).
Now the patch tracking is ready for action. Go to the message list, mark a patch series and apply it:
:patch apply fix_v2
This will apply the selected patch set and assigns the fix_v2 tag to those commits. The tag helps to keep
the commits grouped together, and will be helpful when we want to drop this exact patch set at a later
point.
With :patch list you can verify that the patch set was correctly applied.
If there is a change in the underlying repository (e.g. by rebasing to upstream), the hashes of the
applied local commits can change. :patch list can detect such a change and will then propose to rebase
the internal data. To do this, run
:patch rebase
This will open an editor where you can adjust the correct tags again. You could also change the rebase
point by providing an optional argument (e.g. a commit hash, or even HEAD~3 or origin/master, etc.).
To drop a patch set, use the tag that was assigned during applying:
:patch drop fix_v2
And to delete the project data in aerc:
:patch unlink bar
SUPPORTED REVISION CONTROL SYSTEMS
The supported revision control systems are currently: git.
SEE ALSO
aerc(1)
AUTHORS
Originally created by Drew DeVault and maintained by Robin Jarry who is assisted by other open source
contributors. For more information about aerc development, see https://sr.ht/~rjarry/aerc/.
2025-01-25 AERC-PATCH(7)