From: Stefan Sperling <stsp@stsp.name>
Subject: Re: (test&doc only) RFC: allow editing merge commit messages
To: James Cook <falsifian@falsifian.org>
Cc: gameoftrees@openbsd.org
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2026 09:40:01 +0100

On Sun, Nov 08, 2026 at 02:19:47AM +0000, James Cook wrote:
> I am very particular about my merge commit messages.* The below
> patch adds documentation and regress for a -e option to got merge,
> which would open an editor for the merge commit message.
> 
> (It also adds the existing -M flag to got's usage message.
> 
> Two questions:
> 
> 1. Is this feature wanted?

Yes, I don't see a reason not to have this.

> 2. How about having it as the default? That would be my own preference;
>    I never want the message got auto-generates.

I would be fine with having the editor open up by default, always,
without even adding a new command line flag.
Like it is done during histedit -c after histedit -e, for example.

Always offering the possibilty to edit is better than requiring users
who would like to edit their message to roll everything back and try
again with -e.

Some commands such as 'got commit' check whether the temporary file
storing the log message was modified before proceeding. In case of
'got merge' it would need to proceed anyway, even if the auto-generated
log message was not modified by the editor. However, perhaps empty log
messages should be caught and rejected with a retry-loop, just in case.

Regression tests would need to use tricks similar to those used
by the histedit tests where a shell script is used as $EDITOR.