#+TITLE: Forge User and Developer Manual
:PREAMBLE:
#+AUTHOR: Jonas Bernoulli
#+EMAIL: jonas@bernoul.li
#+DATE: 2018-2021
#+LANGUAGE: en

#+TEXINFO_DIR_CATEGORY: Emacs
#+TEXINFO_DIR_TITLE: Forge: (forge).
#+TEXINFO_DIR_DESC: Access Git Forges from Magit
#+SUBTITLE: for version 0.3.0

#+TEXINFO_DEFFN: t
#+OPTIONS: H:4 num:4 toc:2
#+PROPERTY: header-args :eval never
#+BIND: ox-texinfo+-before-export-hook ox-texinfo+-update-copyright-years
#+BIND: ox-texinfo+-before-export-hook ox-texinfo+-update-version-strings

Forge allows you to work with Git forges, such as Github and Gitlab,
from the comfort of Magit and the rest of Emacs.

#+TEXINFO: @noindent
This manual is for Forge version 0.3.0.

#+BEGIN_QUOTE
Copyright (C) 2018-2021 Jonas Bernoulli <jonas@bernoul.li>

You can redistribute this document and/or modify it under the terms
of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any
later version.

This document is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
General Public License for more details.
#+END_QUOTE
:END:
* Introduction

Forge allows you to work with Git forges, such as Github and Gitlab,
from the comfort of Magit and the rest of Emacs.

Forge fetches issues, pull-requests and other data using the forge's
API and stores that in a local database.  Additionally it fetches the
pull-request references using Git.  Forge implements various features
that use this data but the database and pull-request refs can also be
used by third-party packages.

* Supported Forges and Hosts

Currently Forge supports two forges and three more forges partially.
Additionally it supports four semi-forges.  Support for more forges
and semi-forges can and will be added.

Both forges and semi-forges provide web interfaces for Git
repositories.  Forges additionally support pull-requests and issues
and make those and other information available using an API.

When a forge is only partially supported, then that means that only
the functionality that does not require the API is implemented, or
in other words, that the forge is only supported as a semi-forge.

A host is a particular instance of a forge.  For example the hosts
https://gitlab.com and https://salsa.debian.org are both instances of
the Gitlab forge.  Forge supports some well known hosts out of the box
and additional hosts can easily be supported by adding entries to the
option ~forge-alist~.

For more details about the caveats mentioned below (and some others)
also see [[*Getting Started]].

** Supported Forges
*** Github
:PROPERTIES:
:UNNUMBERED: notoc
:END:

Forge's support for Github can be considered the "reference
  implementation".  Support for other forges can lag behind a bit.

**** Github Caveats

- Forge uses the Github GraphQL API when possible but has to fall
  back to use the REST API in many cases because the former is still
  rather incomplete.

- Forge depends on the ~updated_at~ field being updated when
  appropriate.  For Github pull-requests at least, that is not always
  done.

**** Github Hosts

- https://github.com

*** Gitlab
:PROPERTIES:
:UNNUMBERED: notoc
:END:
**** Gitlab Caveats

- Forge cannot provide notifications because the Gitlab API does not
  expose those.

**** Gitlab Hosts

- https://gitlab.com
- https://salsa.debian.org
- https://framagit.org

** Partially Supported Forges
*** Gitea https://gitea.io
:PROPERTIES:
:UNNUMBERED: notoc
:END:

This is the next forge whose API will be supported.

Currently no public Gitea Hosts are known to me.
The Gitea maintainers plan to create their own instance,
see https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/issues/1029.

*** Gogs https://gogs.io
:PROPERTIES:
:UNNUMBERED: notoc
:END:

Once Gitea is supported it should be fairly simple to support Gogs
too, because the former is a fork of the latter and the APIs seem to
still be very similar.

**** Gogs Hosts

- https://code.orgmode.org

*** Bitbucket https://bitbucket.org
:PROPERTIES:
:UNNUMBERED: notoc
:END:

I don't plan to support Bitbucket's API any time soon, and it gets
less likely that I will every do it every time I look at it.

**** Bitbucket Caveats

- The API documentation is poor and initial tests indicated that the
  implementation is buggy.

- Atlassian's offering contains two very distinct implementations
  that are both called "Bitbucket".  Forge only supports the
  implementation whose only instance is available at
  https://bitbucket.org, because I only have access to that.

- Unlike all other forges, Bitbucket does not expose pull-requests
  as references in the upstream repository.  For that reason Forge
  actually treats it as a semi-forge, not as forge whose API is not
  supported yet.  This means that you cannot checkout pull-requests
  locally.  There is little hope that this will ever get fixed; the
  respective issue was opened six years ago and there has been no
  progress since: https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issues/5814.

**** Bitbucket Hosts

- https://bitbucket.org

** Supported Semi-Forges
*** Gitweb https://git-scm.com/docs/gitweb
:PROPERTIES:
:UNNUMBERED: notoc
:END:
**** Gitweb Caveats

- I could find only one public installation
  (https://git.savannah.gnu.org), which gives users the choice
  between Gitweb and Cgit.  The latter seems more popular (not
  just on this site).

*** Cgit https://git.zx2c4.com/cgit/about
:PROPERTIES:
:UNNUMBERED: notoc
:END:
**** Cgit Caveats

- Different sites use different URL schemata and some of the bigger
  sites use a fork.  For this reason Forge has to provide several
  classes to support different variations of Cgit and you have to
  look at their definitions to figure out which one is the correct
  one for a particular installation.

**** Cgit Hosts

- https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit
- https://git.kernel.org
- https://repo.or.cz

*** Stgit https://codemadness.org/git/stagit/file/README.html
:PROPERTIES:
:UNNUMBERED: notoc
:END:
**** Stgit Caveats

- Stgit cannot show logs for branches beside "master".  For that
  reason Forge takes users to a page listing the branches when they
  request the log for a particular branch (even for "master" whose
  log is just one click away from there).

**** Stgit Hosts

- https://git.suckless.org

*** Srht https://meta.sr.ht
:PROPERTIES:
:UNNUMBERED: notoc
:END:
**** Srht Caveats

- Srht cannot show logs for branches beside "master".  For that
  reason Forge takes users to a page listing the branches when they
  request the log for a particular branch (even for "master" whose
  log is just one click away from there).

**** Srht Hosts

- https://git.sr.ht

* Getting Started
** _

Getting started using Forge should be fairly easy provided you take the
time to read the documentation.  First see [[info:ghub#Getting Started]]
from Ghub's manual.  Ghub is the library that Forge uses to
communicate with forge APIs.  While Ghub can be used independently of
Forge, its "Getting Started" part was written with Forge users in
mind.

Please begin reading in [[info:ghub#Getting Started]] and then come back
here and make sure to read the subsections.

Loading Magit doesn't cause Forge to be loaded automatically.  Adding
something like this to your init file takes care of this:

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp
  (with-eval-after-load 'magit
    (require 'forge))
#+END_SRC

Or if you use ~use-package~:

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp
  (use-package forge
    :after magit)
#+END_SRC

** Token Creation

Forge uses the Ghub package to access the APIs of supported Git
forges.  How this works and how to create and store a token is
documented in [[info:ghub#Getting Started]].

Ghub used to provide a setup wizard, but that had to be removed for
reasons given in the manual just mentioned.  Nowadays there is no way
around reading the documentation and doing this manually I am afraid.

  Forge requires the following token scopes.

- For Github these scopes are required.

  - ~repo~ grants full read/write access to private and public
    repositories.
  - ~user~ grants access to profile information.
  - ~read:org~ grants read-only access to organization membership.

  More information about these and other scopes can be found at
  https://docs.github.com/en/developers/apps/scopes-for-oauth-apps.

- For Gitlab instances ~api~ is the only required scope.  It gives read
  and write access to everything.  The Gitlab API provides more
  fine-grained scopes for read-only access, but when any write access
  at all is required, then it is all or nothing.

** Initial Pull

To start using Forge in a certain repository visit the Magit status
buffer for that repository and type ~f y~ (~forge-pull~).  Alternatively,
you can use ~M-x forge-add-repository~, which makes it possible to add a
forge repository without pulling all topics and even without having to
clone the respective Git repository.

You must set up a token *before* you can add the first repository.
See [[*Token Creation]].

The first time ~forge-pull~ is run in a repository, an entry for that
repository is added to the database and a new value is added to the
Git variable ~remote.<remote>.fetch~, which fetches all pull-requests.
(~+refs/pull/*/head:refs/pullreqs/*~ for Github)

~forge-pull~ then fetches topics and other information using the forge's
API and pull-request references using Git.

The initial fetch can take a while but most of that is done
asynchronously.  Storing the information in the database is done
synchronously though, so there can be a noticeable hang at the end.
Subsequent fetches are much faster.

Fetching issues from Github is much faster than fetching from other
forges because making a handful of GraphQL requests is much faster
than making hundreds of REST requests.

** Repository Detection

Ghub does *not* associate a given local repository with a repository on
a forge.  The Forge package itself takes care of this.  In doing so it
ignores the Git variable ~ghub.host~ and other ~FORGE.host~ variables used
by Ghub.  (But ~github.user~ and other variables used to specify the
user are honored).  Forge associates the local repository with a forge
repository by first determining which remote is associated with the
upstream repository and then looking that up in ~forge-alist~.

If only one remote exists, then Forge uses that unconditionally.
If several remotes exist, then a remote may be selected based on its
name.

The convention is to name the upstream remote ~origin~.  If you follow
this convention, then you have to do nothing else and the remote by
that name is automatically used, provided it exists and regardless of
whether other remotes exist.  If it does not exist, then no other
remotes are tried.

If you do not follow the naming convention, then you have to inform
Forge about that by setting the Git variable ~forge.remote~ to the name
that you instead use for upstream remotes.  For example, to use the
upstream remote named "upstream":

#+BEGIN_SRC shell
  cd /path/to/repo
  git config --local forge.remote upstream
#+END_SRC

If this variable is set, then Forge uses the remote by that name, if
it exists, the same way it may have used ~origin~ if the the variable
were undefined.  I.e. it does not fall through to try ~origin~ if no
remote by your chosen name exists.

Once the upstream remote has been determined, Forge looks it up in
~forge-alist~, using the host part of the URL as the key.  For example
the key for ~git@github.com:magit/forge.git~ is ~github.com~.

** Caveats

- Fetched information is stored in a database.  The table schemata of
  that database have not been finalized yet.  Until that has happened
  it will occasionally have to be discarded.  That isn't such a huge
  deal because for now the database does not contain any information
  that cannot simply be fetched again, see [[*Initial Pull]].

- Fetching is implemented under the assumption that the API can be
  asked to list the things that have changed since we last checked.
  Unfortunately the APIs are not bug-free, so this is not always the
  case.  If in doubt, then re-fetch an individual topic to ensure it
  is up-to-date using the command ~forge-pull-topic~.

- Some other, forge-specific, caveats are mentioned in [[*Supported
  Forges and Hosts]].

* Usage
** _

Once information has been pulled from a repository's forge for the
first time, Forge adds two additional sections, named "Pull requests"
and "Issues" to Magit's status buffer.  It is also possible to add a
repository to the local database without pulling all the data, which
is useful if you want to create a single pull-request.

- Key: N a, forge-add-repository

  This command adds a repository to the database.

  It offers to either pull topics (now and in the future) or to only
  pull individual topics when the user invokes ~forge-pull-topic~.

Some of Forge's commands are only bound when point is within one of
these sections but other commands are also available elsewhere in
Magit's status buffer and/or from Magit's transient commands.

- Key: N, forge-dispatch
- Key: ', forge-dispatch

  This prefix command is available in any Magit buffer and provides
  access to several of the available Forge commands.  Most of these
  commands are also bound elsewhere, but some are not.  See the
  following sections for information about the available commands.

  Throughout this manual you will find many bindings that begin with
  ~N~, but if you prefer to continue to use ~forge-dispatch~'s older
  binding you can substitute ~'~ for that.

** Pulling

The commands that fetch forge data are available from the same
transient prefix command (~magit-fetch~ on ~f~) that is used to fetch Git
data.  If option ~magit-pull-or-fetch~ is non-nil, then they are also
available from the ~magit-pull~ transient (on ~F~).

- Key: f y, forge-pull

  This command uses a forge's API to fetch topics and other
  information about the current repository and stores the fetched
  information in the database.  It also fetches notifications for all
  repositories from the same forge host.  (Currently this is limited
  to Github.)  Finally it fetches pull-request references using Git.

  After using this command for the first time in a given repository
  the status buffer for that repository always lists the pull-requests
  and issues.  See [[*Initial Pull]].

- Key: f Y, forge-pull-notifications

  This command uses a forge's API to fetch all notifications from that
  forge including, but not limited to, the notifications for the current
  repository.

  Fetching all notifications fetches associated topics even if you
  have not started fetching *all* topics for the respective repositories
  (using ~forge-pull~), but it does not cause the topics to be listed in
  the status buffer of such "uninitialized" repositories.

Note how pulling data from a forge's API works the same way as pulling
Git data does; you do it explicitly when you want to see the work done
by others.

This is less disruptive, more reliable, and easier to understand than
if Forge did the pulling by itself at random intervals.  It might
however mean that you occasionally invoke a command expecting the most
recent data to be available and then have to abort to pull first.
The same can happen with Git, e.g. you might attempt to merge a branch
that you know exists but haven't actually pulled yet.

- Key: M-x forge-pull-topic, forge-pull-topic

  This command uses a forge's API to fetch a single pull-request and
  stores it in the database.

  Normally you wouldn't want to pull a single pull-request by itself,
  but due to a bug in the Github API you might sometimes have to do
  so.

  Fetching is implemented under the assumption that the API can be
  asked to list the things that have changed since we last checked.
  Unfortunately the APIs are not bug-free, so this is not always the
  case.  If in doubt, then re-fetch an individual topic to ensure it
  is up-to-date using the command ~forge-pull-topic~.

** Branching

Forge provides commands for creating and checking out a new branch or
work tree from a pull-request.  These commands are available from the
same transient prefix commands as the suffix commands used to create
and check out branches and work trees in a more generic fashion
(~magit-branch~ on ~b~ and ~magit-worktree~ on ~%~).

- Key: b Y, forge-branch-pullreq

  This command creates and configures a new branch from a pull-request,
  creating and configuring a new remote if necessary.

  The name of the local branch is the same as the name of the remote
  branch that you are being asked to merge, unless the contributor
  could not be bothered to properly name the branch before opening the
  pull-request.  The most likely such case is when you are being asked
  to merge something like "fork/master" into "origin/master".  In such
  cases the local branch will be named "pr-N", where ~N~ is the
  pull-request number.

  These variables are always set by this command:

  - ~branch.<name>.pullRequest~ is set to the pull-request number.
  - ~branch.<name>.pullRequestRemote~ is set to the remote on which the
    pull-request branch is located.
  - ~branch.<name>.pushRemote~ is set to the same remote as
    ~branch.<name>.pullRequestRemote~ if that is possible, otherwise
    it is set to the upstream remote.
  - ~branch.<name>.description~ is set to the pull-request title.
  - ~branch.<name>.rebase~ is set to ~true~ because there should be no
    merge commits among the commits in a pull-request.

  This command also configures the upstream and the push-remote of the
  local branch that it creates.

  The branch against which the pull-request was opened is always used
  as the upstream.  This makes it easy to see what commits you are
  being asked to merge in the section titled something like "Unmerged
  into origin/master".

  Like for other commands that create a branch, it depends on the
  option ~magit-branch-prefer-remote-upstream~ whether the remote branch
  itself or the respective local branch is used as the upstream, so
  this section may also be titled e.g. "Unmerged into master".

  When necessary and possible, the remote pull-request branch is
  configured to be used as the push-target.  This makes it easy to see
  what further changes the contributor has made since you last
  reviewed their changes in the section titled something like
  "Unpulled from origin/new-feature" or "Unpulled from
  fork/new-feature".

  - If the pull-request branch is located in the upstream repository,
    then you probably have set ~remote.pushDefault~ to that repository.
    However some users like to set that variable to their personal
    fork, even if they have push access to the upstream, so
    ~branch.<name>.pushRemote~ is set anyway.

  - If the pull-request branch is located inside a fork, then you are
    usually able to push to that branch, because Github by default
    allows the recipient of a pull-request to push to the remote
    pull-request branch even if it is located in a fork.  The
    contributor has to explicitly disable this.

    - If you are not allowed to push to the pull-request branch on
      the fork, then a branch by the same name located in the
      upstream repository is configured as the push-target.

    - A—sadly rather common—special case is when the contributor
      didn't bother to use a dedicated branch for the pull-request.

      The most likely such case is when you are being asked to merge
      something like "fork/master" into "origin/master".  The special
      push permission mentioned above is never granted for the branch
      that is the repository's default branch, and that would almost
      certainly be the case in this scenario.

      To enable you to easily push somewhere anyway, the local branch
      is named "pr-N" (where ~N~ is the pull-request number) and the
      upstream repository is used as the push-remote.

    - Finally, if you are allowed to push to the pull-request branch
      and the contributor had the foresight to use a dedicated branch,
      then the fork is configured as the push-remote.

    The push-remote is configured using ~branch.<name>.pushRemote~, even
    if the used value is identical to that of ~remote.pushDefault~, just
    in case you change the value of the latter later on.  Additionally
    the variable ~branch.<name>.pullRequestRemote~ is set to the remote
    on which the pull-request branch is located.

- Key: b y, forge-checkout-pullreq

  This command creates and configures a new branch from a pull-request
  the same way ~forge-branch-pullreq~ does.  Additionally it checks out
  the new branch.

- Key: % y, forge-checkout-worktree

  This command creates and configures a new branch from a pull-request
  the same way ~forge-branch-pullreq~ does.  Additionally it checks out
  the new branch using a new working tree.

When you delete a pull-request branch, which was created using one of
the above three commands, then ~magit-branch-delete~ usually offers to
also delete the corresponding remote.  It does not offer to delete a
remote if (1) the remote is the upstream remote, and/or (2) if other
branches are being fetched from the remote.

Note that you have to delete the local branch (e.g. "feature") for
this to work.  If you delete the tracking branch (e.g "fork/feature"),
then the remote is never removed.

** Working with Topics
*** _

We call both issues and pull-requests "topics".  The contributions to
the conversation are called "posts".

*** Visiting Topics

Magit's status buffer contains lists of issues and pull-requests.
Topics are ordered by last modification time.  All open issues and
some recently edited and closed topics are listed.

Forge provides some commands that act on the listed topics.  These
commands can also be used in other contexts, such as when point is
on a commit or branch section.

- Key: C-c C-w, forge-browse-TYPE
- Key: C-c C-w, forge-browse-dwim

  These commands visit the pull-request(s), issue(s), post, branch,
  commit, or remote at point in a browser.

  This is implemented using various commands named ~forge-browse-TYPE~,
  and the key binding is defined by remapping ~magit-browse-thing~ (as
  defined in ~magit-mode-map)~.  For commit sections this key is bound
  to ~forge-browse-dwim~, which prefers a topic over a branch and a
  branch over a commit.

- Key: RET, forge-visit-TYPE
- Key: C-c C-v, forge-visit-topic

  These commands visit the pull-request(s), issue(s), or repository in
  a separate buffer.

  The ~RET~ binding is only available when point is on a issue or
  pull-request section because that key is already bound to something
  else for most of Magit's own sections.  ~C-c C-v~ however is also
  available on regular commit (e.g. in a log) and branch sections.

  This is implemented using various commands named ~forge-visit-TYPE~
  and the key binding is defined by remapping ~magit-visit-thing~ (as
  defined in ~magit-mode-map~).

*** Listing Topics and Notifications

By default Forge lists a subset of topics directly in the Magit status
buffer.  It also provides commands to list topics and notifications in
separate buffers.

Forge adds the following two functions to ~magit-status-sections-hook~:

- Function: forge-insert-pullreqs

  This function inserts a list of the most recent and/or open
  pull-requests.

- Function: forge-insert-issues

  This function inserts a list of the most recent and/or open issues.

- User Options: forge-topic-list-limit

  This option limits the number of topics listed by the above
  functions.

  All unread topics are always shown.  If the value of this option has
  the form ~(OPEN . CLOSED)~, then the integer ~OPEN~ specifies the
  maximal number of topics and ~CLOSED~ specifies the maximal number of
  closed topics.  IF ~CLOSED~ is negative then show no closed topics
  until the command ~forge-toggle-closed-visibility~ changes the sign.

- Command: forge-toggle-closed-visibility

  This command toggles whether the above two functions list recently
  closed issues in the current buffer.

The following three functions are also suitable for
~magit-status-sections-hook~:

- Function: forge-insert-assigned-pullreqs

  This function inserts a list of open pull-requests that are assigned
  to you.

- Function: forge-insert-requested-reviews

  This function inserts a list of open pull-requests that are awaiting
  your review.

- Function: forge-insert-authored-pullreqs

  This function inserts a list of open pull-requests that are authored
  by you.

- Function: forge-insert-assigned-issues

  This function inserts a list of open issues that are assigned to
  you.

- Function: forge-insert-authored-issues

  This function inserts a list of open issues that are authored by
  you.

The following commands list repositories, notifications and topics in
dedicated buffers:

- Key: N r, forge-list-repositories

  This command lists all known repositories in a separate buffer.

- Key: N l, forge-list-notifications

  This command lists all notifications for all forges in a separate
  buffer.

- Key: N P, forge-list-pullreqs
  This command lists the current repository's pull-requests in a
  separate buffer.

- Key: N I, forge-list-issues

  This command lists the current repository's issues in a separate
  buffer.

- Command: forge-list-labeled-pullreqs

  This command lists the current repository's open pull-requests that
  are labeled with a label read from the user.

- Command: forge-list-labeled-issues

  This command lists the current repository's open issues that are
  labeled with a label read from the user.

- Command: forge-list-assigned-pullreqs

  This command lists the current repository's open pull-requests that
  are assigned to you in a separate buffer.

- Command: forge-list-assigned-issues

  This command lists the current repository's open issues that are
  assigned to you in a separate buffer.

- Command: forge-list-requested-reviews

  This command lists pull-requests of the current repository that are
  awaiting your review in a separate buffer.

- Command: forge-list-authored-pullreqs

  This command lists the current repository's open pull-requests that
  are authored by you in a separate buffer.

- Command: forge-list-authored-issues

  This command lists the current repository's open issues that are
  authored by you in a separate buffer.

- Command: forge-list-owned-pullreqs

  This command lists open pull-requests from all the repositories that
  you own.  Options ~forge-owned-accounts~ and ~forge-owned-ignored~
  controls which repositories are considered to be owned by you.  Only
  Github is supported for now.

- Command: forge-list-owned-issues

  This command lists open issues from all the repositories that
  you own.  Options ~forge-owned-accounts~ and ~forge-owned-ignored~
  controls which repositories are considered to be owned by you.  Only
  Github is supported for now.

- User Option: forge-owned-accounts

  This is an alist of accounts that are owned by you.  This should
  include your username as well as any organization that you own.
  Used by the commands ~forge-list-owned-issues~,
  ~forge-list-owned-pullreqs~ and ~forge-fork~.

  Each element has the form ~(ACCOUNT . PLIST)~.  The following
  properties are currently being used:

  - ~remote-name~ The default name suggested by ~forge-fork~ for a fork
    created within this account.  If unspecified, then the name of the
    account is used.

  Example: ~(("tarsius") ("emacsmirror" :remote-name "mirror"))~.

- User Option: forge-owned-ignored

  This is a list of repository names that are considered to not be
  owned by you even though they would have been considered to be owned
  by you based on ~forge-owned-accounts~.

*** Creating Topics

- Key: N c p, forge-create-pullreq
- Key: C-c C-n [on "Pull requests" section], forge-create-pullreq

  This command creates a new pull-request for the current repository.

- Key: N c i, forge-create-issue
- Key: C-c C-n [on "Issues" section], forge-create-issue

  This command creates a new issue for the current repository.

*** Editing Topics and Posts

We call both issues and pull-requests "topics".  The contributions to
the conversation are called "posts".  The post that initiated the
conversation is also called a post.

These commands are available only from the topic buffer (i.e. from the
buffer that shows the posts on a topic).  Other commands that also
work in other buffers are available here also.  For example ~C-c C-w~ on
a post visits that post in a browser.

- Key: C-c C-n, forge-create-post
- Key: C-c C-r, forge-create-post

  This command allows users to create a new post on an existing topic.
  It opens a buffer in which the user can write the post.  When the
  post is done, then the user has to submit using ~C-c C-c~.

  If the region is active and marks part of an existing post, then
  that part of the post is quoted.  Otherwise, or if a prefix argument
  is used, then the complete post that point is currently on is quoted.

- Key: C-c C-e [on a post section], forge-edit-post

  This command visits an existing post in a separate buffer.  When the
  changes to the post are done, then the user has to submit using ~C-c
  C-c~.

- Key: C-c C-e [on "Title" section], forge-edit-topic-title

  This command reads a new title for an existing topic in the
  minibuffer.

- Key: C-c C-e [on "State" section], forge-edit-topic-state

  This command toggles the state of an existing topic between "open"
  and "closed".

- Key: C-c C-e [on "Labels" section], forge-edit-topic-labels

  This command reads a list of labels for an existing topic in the
  minibuffer.

- Key: C-c C-e [on "Marks" section], forge-edit-topic-marks

  This command reads a list of marks for an existing topic in the
  minibuffer.

  Marks are like labels except that they are not shared with anyone
  else.  To create a mark that topics can subsequently be marked with
  use the command ~forge-create-mark~.  Existing marks can be edited
  using the command ~forge-edit-mark~.

- Key: C-c C-e [on "Assignees" section], forge-edit-topic-assignees

  This command reads a list of assignees for an existing topic in the
  minibuffer.

- Key: C-c C-e [on "Review-Requests" section], forge-edit-topic-review-requests

  This command reads a list of people who you would like to review an
  existing topic in the minibuffer.

- Key: C-c C-e [on "Note" section], forge-edit-topic-note
- Key: M-x forge-edit-topic-note, forge-edit-topic-note

  This lets you edit your private note about a topic.

- Key: C-c C-k [on a comment section], forge-delete-comment

  This command deletes the comment at point.

- Key: m a [if enabled], forge-merge

  This command merge the current pull-request using the forge's API.
  If there is no current pull-request or with a prefix argument, then
  it reads a pull-request to visit instead.

  The "merge method" to be used is read from the user.

  Use of this command is discouraged.  Unless the remote repository is
  configured to disallow that, you should instead merge locally and
  then push the target branch.  Forges detect that you have done that
  and respond by automatically marking the pull-request as merged.

Creating a new post and editing an existing post are similar to
creating a new commit and editing the message of an existing commit.
In both cases the message has to be written in a separate buffer and then
the process has to be finished or canceled using a separate command.

The following commands are available in buffers used to edit posts:

- Key: C-c C-c, forge-post-submit

  This command submits the post that is being edited in the current
  buffer.

- Key: C-c C-k, forge-post-cancel

  This command cancels the post that is being edited in the current
  buffer.

** Miscellaneous

- Key: N c f, forge-fork

  This command adds an additional remote to the current repository.
  The remote can either point at an existing repository or one that
  has to be created first by forking it to an account the user has
  access to.

  Currently this only supports Github and Gitlab.

- Key: N a, forge-add-repository

  This command reads a repository from the user and adds it to the
  database.  The repository can be provided as a URL, a name, or in
  the form OWNER/NAME.  This is subject to ~magit-clone-name-alist~.

  This command offers to either pull topics (now and in the future) or
  to only pull individual topics when the user invokes
  ~forge-pull-topic~.

- Command: forge-add-user-repositories

  This command reads a host and a username from the user and adds all
  of that user's repositories on that host to the local database.

  This may take a while. Only Github is supported at the moment.

- Command: forge-add-organization-repositories

  This command reads a host and an organization from the user and adds
  all the organization's repositories on that host to the local database.

  This may take a while. Only Github is supported at the moment.

- Command: forge-remove-repository

  This command reads a repository and removes it from the local
  database.

- Command: forge-remove-topic-locally

  This command reads a topic and removes it from the local database.
  The topic is not removed from the forge and, if it is later modified,
  then it will be added to the database again.

  Due to how the supported APIs work, it would be too expensive to
  automatically remove topics from the local datbase that were removed
  from the forge.  The only purpose of this command is to allow you to
  manually clean up the local database.

- Command: forge-reset-database

  This command moves the current database file to the trash and
  creates a new empty database.

  This is useful after the database's table schemata have changed,
  which will happen a few times while the Forge functionality is still
  under heavy development.

* Other Options

- User Option: forge-database-connector

  This option controls which database connector is used by Forge.

  This must be set before ~forge~ is loaded.  To use an alternative
  connector you must install the respective package explicitly.

  - When ~sqlite~, then use the ~emacsql-sqlite~ library that is
    being maintained in the same repository as ~emacsql~ itself.

  - When ~libsqlite3~, then use the ~emacsql-libsqlite~ library,
    which itself uses a module provided by the ~sqlite3~ package.
    This is still experimental.

  - When ~sqlite3~, then use the ~emacsql-sqlite3~ library, which
    uses the official ~sqlite3~ command-line tool, which I do not
    recommended because it is not suitable to be used like this,
    but has the advantage that you likely don't need a compiler.
    See https://nullprogram.com/blog/2014/02/06/.

* FAQ
:PROPERTIES:
:APPENDIX:   t
:END:
** Is it possible to create a single pull-request without pulling everything?

Yes.  ~M-x forge-add-repository~ offers to add a repository to the
database without also fetching all pull-requests and issues.

** ~error in process filter: HTTP Error: 502, "Bad gateway"~

This is a frequently occuring error.  Adding some formatting the full
error is:

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp
  error in process filter: ghub--signal-error: HTTP Error: 502,
    "Bad gateway", "/graphql",
    ((data . "null")
     (errors ((message . "Something went wrong while executing your query.
        This may be the result of a timeout, or it could be a GitHub bug.
        Please include `CC2C:4FEA:A1771C1:CBF40CE:5C33F7E5`
        when reporting this issue."))))
#+END_SRC

This indicates that something went wrong within Github's network.  See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes#5xx_server_errors.
The appended error message also says as much: "This may be the result
of a timeout, or it could be a GitHub bug."

It appears that this happens more often in big repositories,
especially during the initial pull, but this may be an illusion; it is
known to also happens for smaller, incremental requests.

I believe that more data just means more requests and thus more
opportunities for things to go wrong.  It seems unlikely that this is
due to us requesting too much data at once (in that case we would get
a different error from GraphQL, not HTTP).  When fetching lots of
data, then we do not request one large response but make many requests
and we then collect the many responses (pagination forces us to do
that).

The timeout may be due to many requests from other people arriving at
some Github-internal bottleneck at the same time, or it may be due to
cold caches and overly aggressive timeouts.  We just don't know; it's
their infrastructure.

The second problem is that we currently simply error out if we get
this error.  This could be changed and eventually it will be, but for
the time being your only option is to just try again, possibly
repeatedly and possibly after a delay to give whatever congestion may
exist on the other end a chance to clear or to give their caches a
chance to warm up.

This was also discussed in https://github.com/magit/ghub/issues/20 and
https://github.com/magit/ghub/issues/83.

* Keystroke Index
:PROPERTIES:
:APPENDIX:   t
:INDEX:      ky
:COOKIE_DATA: recursive
:END:
* Command Index
:PROPERTIES:
:APPENDIX:   t
:INDEX:      cp
:END:
* Function Index
:PROPERTIES:
:APPENDIX:   t
:INDEX:      fn
:END:
* Variable Index
:PROPERTIES:
:APPENDIX:   t
:INDEX:      vr
:END:
* _ Copying
:PROPERTIES:
:COPYING:    t
:END:

#+BEGIN_QUOTE
Copyright (C) 2018-2021 Jonas Bernoulli <jonas@bernoul.li>

You can redistribute this document and/or modify it under the terms
of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any
later version.

This document is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
General Public License for more details.
#+END_QUOTE

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