Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH] format-patch: better commit list for cover letter

From: Mirko Faina <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2026 06:18:46 +0100

On Fri, Feb 20, 2026 at 08:54:50PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>  (1) Drop the abbreviated object name, as they are useless garbage.
>      The result of applying these patches will not have these commit
>      object names anyway, so even when people find these messages on
>      a mail archive in 6 months, they will not find the result of
>      applying the patches from the official project history with
>      these object names.

Should there be a reference to the author ident instead of the object
name then? A quick glance on who worked on what before diving into the
patches themselves might be useful.

>  (2) Do we need to make this optional, in order to allow those users
>      who do prefer the current "shortlog" style that groups patches
>      from the same person together to keep the original style?  I am
>      undecided myself.

Maybe the "--cover-letter" option can take an argument like
"--cover-letter=<shortlog | commitlist>". Although I doubt there's
anyone that actually likes the shortlog version, it gives very little
information. I'm inclined to think that most leave it there because they
think it must be somewhat since it is the default, tho this is just my
assumption.