Skip to content

Patch and Reply

This page covers the high-level patch workflow in the TUI: detecting patch series, applying or exporting them, opening the reply panel, and sending replies through the preview-confirm-send flow.

Patch workflow

CRIEW detects patch series from thread subjects such as [PATCH vN M/N]. Inside the TUI:

  • a applies the current patch series through b4
  • d exports the current patch series
  • u undoes the most recent successful apply from the current session

Patch handling becomes more useful when a kernel tree is configured in [kernel].

Reply panel

Open the reply panel with r or e. CRIEW fills these editable headers when the panel opens:

  • From
  • To
  • Cc
  • Subject

CRIEW also injects the thread headers needed for mail threading:

  • In-Reply-To
  • References

The body starts from a kernel-style quoted template.

Send flow

CRIEW uses a fixed send sequence:

  1. Open Send Preview.
  2. Review the rendered headers and body.
  3. Confirm the send.
  4. Let CRIEW deliver the reply through git send-email.

If the draft contains only quoted text and generated scaffolding, Send Preview still opens, but it shows a warning before the user confirms the send. Authored reply lines stand out from quoted lines in the preview.

Source of truth

This page is a summary. The detailed reply rules live in: docs/specs/reply-format-spec.md

That spec defines:

  • subject normalization to a single Re: ...
  • To and Cc inheritance and self-address filtering
  • From resolution from git mail identity
  • quoting format
  • Send Preview -> Confirm -> Send

Verify the result

Success means:

  • the selected thread resolves to a patch series when expected
  • apply or export finishes with a visible result instead of a silent no-op
  • the reply panel opens with populated headers
  • preview and send do not lose the current draft

See also