lkml-reader

A Rust-based interactive reader for Linux Kernel Mailing Lists hosted on lore.kernel.org, inspired by hackermail.

It mirrors lore's public-inbox git archives locally and provides a terminal UI to browse and read mails. The main goal is to have a simple, fast, and keyboard-friendly way to keep up with the latest discussions in the Linux kernel community.

Demo

Features

• Pick any mailing list on lore.kernel.org (linux-pm, linux-mm, linux-kernel, damon, …) via --list.
• Filter by subsystem interactively with / (case-insensitive substring match against the subject, e.g. sched matches [PATCH sched/core], [sched], [scheduler]).
• Filter by author with a (case-insensitive substring of the From header, so both the display name and the address match).
• Filter by date range with d (today, yesterday, or YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM to YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM).
• Read the raw mail in a scrollable detail pane with diff-aware coloring (green +, red -, cyan @@).
• Reply to a mail with r: edit the draft in $EDITOR, send with git send-email (see Replying).
• Apply a patch series with p: the whole series is pulled from the mirror and applied with git am (see Applying patches).

Build & run

git submodule update --init   # fetch vendor/lkml-core on first checkout
cargo build --release

# Launch the TUI — clones the latest epoch on first run, runs
# `git remote update` on every subsequent start.
./target/release/lkml-reader --list lkml

Or via the Makefile:

make run-reader                      # defaults to LIST=lkml
make run-reader LIST=linux-pm

CLI:

lkml-reader [--list <LIST>]

Defaults: --list lkml.

Keys

View	Key	Action
List	↑ / ↓	Move selection within page
List	← / →	Previous / next page
List	Enter	Open mail
List	r	Reply to mail (see Replying)
List	p	Apply patch series (see Applying patches)
List	/	Set subject filter (lazy per-epoch, auto-clones older epochs as you page)
List	a	Set author filter (From substring: name or address)
List	d	Set date filter
List	u	Update current mirror (git remote update)
List	?	Help
List	q	Quit
Detail	↑/↓, PgUp/PgDn	Scroll
Detail	g / G	Top / bottom
Detail	r	Reply to mail (see Replying)
Detail	p	Apply patch series (see Applying patches)
Detail	Esc / q	Back to list

Replying

r builds a reply draft: open it in $EDITOR, and sends it with git send-email.

Your identity and mail server come from git. Configure them once:

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email you@example.org
git config --global sendemail.smtpServer smtp.example.org
git config --global sendemail.smtpUser you@example.org
git config --global sendemail.smtpEncryption tls
git config --global sendemail.smtpServerPort 587

git help send-email covers the rest, including using a local msmtp/sendmail instead of SMTP, and keeping the password out of the config file.

Applying patches

p applies the selected mail's patch series to a git tree with git am. It prompts for the tree (default: the current directory, remembered for the rest of the session), then applies.

The whole series is applied, not just the mail under the cursor. Pressing p on any patch — or on the 0/N cover letter, which is not itself applied — applies 1/N … N/N in order. Selection is not limited to the current page.

If the mirror is missing part of the series, you are told how many patches are missing and asked before anything is applied. A failed git am leaves the tree mid-apply, exactly as git does; git am --abort undoes it.