SubmittingPatches: encourage trailer use for substantial help

Trailers beyond the mandatory s-o-b are regularly used based on my last two years of reading the mailing list. Moreover, reviewers might encourage it.[1] This is also in line with the project crediting both commit authors and people mentioned in trailers each release; “Nobody is THE one making contribution”.[2] Adding trailers is already encouraged, but in the section `send-patches`. Let’s replace “If you like” with outright encouragement in this section so that all trailer discussion (except s-o-b; see `sign-off` section) is contained in this section; a link to from `send-patches` makes this information equally visible. Now we need to make a heading for `commit-trailers` in order for the HTML output to make sense. At the same time, it is important to temper this recommendation to a significant enough contribution; in my experience beginners can be eager to add a trailer for everyone who replies with an action point that is followed up on. Let’s also spell out that these trailers should follow the Git author/ committer format. One might naturally just write the name, but in that case it will not be picked up by: git shortlog --group=trailer:<key> and normalization via `.mailmap` will not work. Also introduce the list of common trailers as such. Granted, this is already implied by the later paragraph about “create your own trailer”, so this just frontloads this information. † 1: https://lore.kernel.org/git/CAP8UFD0POvYDgGtEx8GBhvKkd8XzzWQsy8XxAKL9M3+uz3ka+w@mail.gmail.com/#:~:text=for%20at%20least † 2: https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqzh248sy0.fsf@gitster.c.googlers.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 d0c6ecea230aed04ad703502b43c9b313ccfc95d
1 file changed +11 -3
Documentation/SubmittingPatches
+11 -3
@@ -444,7 +444,15 @@ The goal of this policy is to allow us to have sufficient information to contact
444 you if questions arise about your contribution.
445
446 [[commit-trailers]]
447 -If you like, you can put extra trailers at the end:
447 +=== Commit trailers
448 +It is polite to credit people who have helped with your work to a
449 +substantial enough degree. This project uses commit trailers for that,
450 +where the credited person is written out like a Git author, i.e. with
451 +both their name and their email address. Note that the threshold to
452 +credit someone is a judgement call, and crediting someone for simple
453 +review work is certainly not necessary.
454 +
455 +These are the common trailers in use:
456
457 . `Reported-by:` is used to credit someone who found the bug that
458 the patch attempts to fix.
@@ -562,8 +570,8 @@ when the maintainer did not heavily participate in the discussion and
570 instead left the review to trusted others.
571
572 Do not forget to add trailers such as `Acked-by:`, `Reviewed-by:` and
565 -`Tested-by:` lines as necessary to credit people who helped your
566 -patch, and "cc:" them when sending such a final version for inclusion.
573 +`Tested-by:` (see <<commit-trailers,Commit trailers>>), and "cc:" them
574 +when sending such a final version for inclusion.
575
576 ==== `format-patch` and `send-email`
577