lore-cli

A terminal UI for browsing patches from a lore / public-inbox server, written in Rust with ratatui.

It lists a mailing list's patches, colors them by merge/review status, and opens whole threads in closable, scrollable tabs.

Warning

This project was heavily AI-driven. Most of the code was written by large language models with human guidance. Review with appropriate skepticism.

Features

• Browse the patches (thread roots) of a configured mailing list, newest first.
• Status colors, derived from each patch's thread:
  • green — merged (a non-quoted reply contains the configured merge marker, "Merged, thanks" by default).
  • yellow — reviewed but not merged (a Reviewed-by: trailer appears in the root patch or any reply).
  • default — neither merged nor reviewed.
  • dim — status still being probed (or undetermined).
• Open a patch to read the entire thread in its own tab, with reply nesting and light syntax coloring (quotes, trailers, diff lines).
• Multiple tabs; the patch list is always tab 0.
• Patch-set grouping: a cover letter ([PATCH 0/N]) folds its series patches beneath it (Space to expand/collapse); standalone patches open with Enter.
• Live search: press / to filter the list by subject as you type.
• Background status probing (visible rows first) with bounded concurrency and an on-disk cache.
• Incremental pagination: more patches load as you scroll to the bottom.

Build

cargo build --release

Requires a recent stable Rust toolchain.

Configuration

[lore]
# Base URL of the lore / public-inbox server.
server  = "https://lore.kernel.org"
# Mailing list / inbox name (the path segment after the server).
project = "amd-gfx"

[ui]
page_size          = 200   # patches per page (200 = server maximum)
status_concurrency = 6     # parallel thread fetches for status detection

[cache]
max_age_secs = 900         # re-fetch a cached thread after this many seconds
                           # (0 = cache forever). Keeps threads up to date as
                           # new patches/replies arrive on the list.

[status]
# Case-insensitive texts that mark a patch as merged (shown green). List every
# phrase your subsystem uses; a single string also works.
merged_markers = ["Merged, thanks", "Applied, thanks"]

Only the [lore] section is required; [ui], [cache] and [status] fall back to the defaults shown above.

By default the config is read from the platform config directory:

• Linux: ~/.config/lore-cli/config.toml
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/lore-cli/config.toml
• Windows: %APPDATA%\lore-cli\config.toml

If no file exists there, a config.toml in the current directory is used as a fallback (handy when running from a repo checkout). Use --config PATH to point at any other file.

Usage

cargo run --release                       # uses ~/.config/lore-cli/config.toml (or ./config.toml)
cargo run --release -- --config PATH      # use a specific config file
./target/release/lore-cli --config PATH

Key bindings

Patch list (tab 0):

Key	Action
Up / Down (k / j)	move selection
Home / End (g / G)	first / last
PageUp / PageDown	jump 10
Ctrl+d / Ctrl+u	half-page down / up
Enter / → / l	open the selected thread
/	live search (Esc clears)
R	refresh (check for new patches)
Space	expand / collapse a patch-set
m	load more patches (auto at end)
Ctrl+n / Ctrl+p	next / previous tab
q / Esc	quit

Thread tab:

Key	Action
Up / Down (k / j)	scroll one line
Ctrl+d / Ctrl+u	fast scroll (half page)
PageDown / PageUp / Space	scroll a page
Home / End (g / G)	top / bottom
Ctrl+n / Ctrl+p	next / previous tab
q / Esc	close the tab
J	previous patch
K	next patch

How it works

• The patch list is the Atom feed \<server\>/\<project\>/?x=A&q=rt:..+AND+NOT+s:Re:&o=\<offset\>, which returns thread roots newest-first (NOT s:Re: drops replies), paginated by o=.
• A thread is the gzipped mbox \<server\>/\<project\>/\<message-id\>/t.mbox.gz, decompressed and parsed into individual emails for display and status detection.
• Decompressed threads are cached under the OS cache directory, e.g. ~/.cache/lore-cli/\<host\>/\<project\>/.

Note on merge detection

Whether a patch shows as merged depends entirely on maintainers writing the configured merged_markers. Conventions vary widely between subsystems (some say "Applied, thanks", some nothing at all), so list the phrases your list uses. Reviewed-by: is a standard git trailer and is detected everywhere.

Development

cargo test                 # unit + render tests
cargo test -- --ignored    # also run the live network smoke test

See PLAN.md for the original design and roadmap.