SubmittingPatches: note that trailer order matters
It matters where you put new trailers: they should be added in chronological order, and each person who passes on a patch should add their s-o-b last. You are signing off on the patch as well as the whole message up to that point. This also makes it clear who added what: Acked-by: The Reviewer <r@example.org> Signed-off-by: The Contributor <c@example.org> Acked-by: The (Late) Reviewer <late@example.org> Signed-off-by: The Maintainer <m@example.org> The first ack was added by the contributor and the second one was added by the maintainer. Helped-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> Signed-off-by: Kristoffer Haugsbakk <code@khaugsbakk.name> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Kristoffer Haugsbakk committed
Jun 19, 2026 at 07:44 UTC
55113123f5a830e5d4f1b728668a90a0e6ca7193
1 file changed
+10
Documentation/SubmittingPatches
+10
index 125bc0a2d6..56706e55ea 100644
--- a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
+++ b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
@@ -427,6 +427,10 @@ D-C-O. Indeed you are encouraged to do so. Do not forget to
place an in-body "From: " line at the beginning to properly attribute
the change to its true author (see (2) above).
+Place this `Signed-off-by:` trailer at the end, after trailers added by
+others and after other trailers added by you; see
+<<commit-trailers,Commit trailers>> below ("chronological order").
+
This procedure originally came from the Linux kernel project, so our
rule is quite similar to theirs, but what exactly it means to sign-off
your patch differs from project to project, so it may be different
@@ -487,6 +491,12 @@ particular are not used in this project.
Only capitalize the very first letter of the trailer, i.e. favor
`Signed-off-by:` over `Signed-Off-By:` and `Acked-by:` over `Acked-By:`.
+As mentioned under <<dco,DCO>> above, trailers are added in
+chronological order; one person might sign-off on a patch and send it to
+someone else, who then in turn adds her own sign-off. Further, any
+trailers that you add beyond your sign-off should come before that
+sign-off. That makes it clear what trailers which person added.
+
[[ai]]
=== Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)