How to configure a PR template so all new PRs are draft by default

[DamienCassou]

In the code of forge--prepare-post-buffer, I can see

(setq forge--buffer-draft-p (alist-get 'draft template))

I understand from this code that it would be possible to add a draft: t metadata to my PR templates. Nevertheless, forge--topic-parse-template doesn't seem to have support for writing the draft key. Additionally, forge--topic-templates mentions the existence of a config.yml file but this one will never be returned by forge--topic-template-files in the case of a GitHub PR.

Is there any hope to get new PRs to always be in draft mode?

[tarsius]

forge--topic-parse-template doesn't seem to have support for writing the draft key.

Fixed in 4c5416e.

Additionally, forge--topic-templates mentions the existence of a config.yml file but this one will never be returned by forge--topic-template-files in the case of a GitHub PR.

So? (It's not supposed too. I don't see how this is relevant.)

Is there any hope to get new PRs to always be in draft mode?

With the above commit adding this to your template works:

---
draft: true
---

I also tested the approach mentioned in d33aaf4, though it is possible that that depends on 14ab78a, which I had not pushed yet.

At least one more big commit is coming soon. I suggest you wait until that has landed.

[tarsius]

You can now use (setq-default forge--buffer-draft-p t).

The name of this variable and all the other forge--buffer-* variables are pretty bad. Making such a variable "public" by removing a dash from the prefix, doesn't make it better.

Partly because of that, I do not intend to bring this back as an option. The other reason is that I don't expect many users to want this. The option was broken all along, but only one user reported that.

You could instead set draft: true (not draft: t) in all pull_request_template.md (not config.yml), but I don't recommend that. Seems very unnecessary to spread so much noise around, and it would only affect users of this package.

You could do this only for some (i.e., your) repositories using:

(add-hook 'forge-edit-post-hook
          (lambda ()
            (when (my-repository-p)
              (setq forge--buffer-draft-p t))))

In an earlier example I also made this conditional on the name of the visited file. This is unnecessary, other topic types don't use this variable, so needlessly setting it has no effect.

[DamienCassou]

The option was broken all along, but only one user reported that.

I'm not sure why you say that. I have had (setq-default forge-buffer-draft-p t) in my init.el and had no problem with it.

[tarsius]

I'm not sure why you say that.

Because neither @isadon (see #509) nor I could get it to work that way.

Looking at the old code I also do not see how it could possibly work, unless something else somehow sets the buffer-local value.

This cannot possibly return a value of forge-buffer-draft-p:

(if (local-variable-p 'forge-buffer-draft-p)
    forge-buffer-draft-p
  .draft))

unless something makes that variable buffer-local (not just "automatically becomes buffer-local when set using setq"). Except for the command forge-post-toggle-draft nothing in Forge set the local value.

I don't know why it worked for you anyway. I suspect that you actually have some other code that sets it.

[DamienCassou]

I suspect that you actually have some other code that sets it

I just saw it in the .dir-locals.el of a top-level directory :-).

[tarsius]

Well, I merged my implementation of that option, and hope I tested it afterwards. I'm guessing something similar happened to me then. 😁