From: Kristoffer Haugsbakk Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2026 05:44:54 +0000 (+0200) Subject: SubmittingPatches: note that trailer order matters X-Git-Url: http://git.ipfire.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?a=commitdiff_plain;h=55113123f5a830e5d4f1b728668a90a0e6ca7193;p=thirdparty%2Fgit.git 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 Signed-off-by: The Contributor Acked-by: The (Late) Reviewer Signed-off-by: The Maintainer The first ack was added by the contributor and the second one was added by the maintainer. Helped-by: Junio C Hamano Signed-off-by: Kristoffer Haugsbakk Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano --- diff --git a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches 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 +<> 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 <> 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)