[O] Best approaches for implementing a developer workflow using ORG?

[Alex Bennée]

Hi,

As a developer I spend a lot of time moving back and forth between email
messages and COMMIT buffers copying and pasting review and signoff tags.
I've been investigating if there is anyway I can streamline this work
using org-mode.

The first step is fairly easy. When I come across an email that has
review comments or tags I can use org-capture to store a link under a
sub-heading of my reviews.org file:

#+name: capture-steps
#+begin_src emacs-lisp
  (setq
   org-capture-templates
   '(
     ("g" "Save reference to review tag"
      checkitem
      (file+headline "review.org" "Review Tags")
      "  - [ ] %a" :immediate-finish t)
     ("r" "Review Comment (email)"
      checkitem
      (file+headline "review.org" "Review Comments")
      "  - [ ] %a")))

  (defvar my-dco-tag-re
    (rx (: bol (zero-or-more (in blank))                        ;; fresh line
           (any "RSTA") (one-or-more (in alpha "-")) "-by: "    ;; tag
           (one-or-more (in alpha blank "<>@."))                ;; person
           eol))
    "Regexp to match DCO style tag.")

  (defun my-capture-review-tags ()
    "Return a list of tags for current buffer"
    (let ((tags))
      (save-excursion
        (goto-char (point-min))
        (while (re-search-forward my-dco-tag-re (point-max) t)
          (add-to-list 'tags (match-string-no-properties 0))))
      tags))

  (defun my-org-maybe-capture-review-tag ()
    "Check buffer for DCO tags and if found queue a review comment."
    (interactive)
    (when (my-capture-review-tags)
      (org-capture nil "g")))

  (when (fboundp 'mu4e-view-mode-map)
    (define-key mu4e-view-mode-map (kbd "C-c C-c") 
'my-org-maybe-capture-review-tag))
#+end_src

My stumbling block is now how do I approach automating the application
of tags when I'm in a magit COMMIT buffer. After some fumbling about I
can navigate my org file and find links that match a given patch title
(which generally matches the email title as they start as
git-send-email patch series):

#+name: automating-tag-fetching
#+begin_src emacs-lisp
(defun my-org-get-elements (file heading)
  "Search FILE for HEADING and return the AST of that heading."
  (interactive)
  (let ((org-buf (org-capture-target-buffer file)))
    (with-current-buffer org-buf
      (org-element-map (org-element-parse-buffer) 'headline
         (lambda (hl)
           (when (string-match heading (org-element-property :raw-value hl))
             (identity hl)))))))

(defun my-org-get-unchecked-items (items)
  "Return the AST of unchecked ITEMS."
  (org-element-map items 'item
    (lambda (item) (when (eq (org-element-property :checkbox item) 'off)
                     (org-element-contents item)))))

(defun my-org-visit-link-and-snarf-tags ()
  "Visit org-link-at-point and return a set of tags."
  (save-window-excursion
    (save-excursion
      (org-open-at-point t)
      (my-capture-review-tags))))


(defun my-org-find-review-tags (subject)
  "Search saved review tags, looking for `SUBJECT' match."
  (interactive)
  (let* ((ast (my-org-get-elements "review.org" "Review Tags"))
         (buffer (org-capture-target-buffer "review.org"))
         (unchecked (my-org-get-unchecked-items ast))
         (tags))
    (org-element-map unchecked 'link
      (lambda (link)
        (let ((beg (org-element-property :begin link))
              (end (org-element-property :end link)))
          (with-current-buffer buffer
            (when (string-match-p
                   subject
                   (buffer-substring-no-properties beg end))
              (add-to-list 'tags
                           (my-org-visit-link-and-snarf-tags)))))))
    (when tags
      (mapconcat 'symbol-name tags "\n"))))
#+end_src

I'm not sure if my parsing of the tree is as efficient as it should
be, especially the manual grubbing about with :begin and :end of link
to match the link subject.

However the main problem is my-org-visit-link-and-snarf-tags doesn't
work as expected because there doesn't seem to be a way to visit an
org-link in the background to gather the data I need. Really I want to
visit the resulting buffer that org-open-at-point visits in a
(with-current-buffer &body) style visit.

I have tried the other option of inserting the tags as data for the
capture by doing a kill-new and a template like:

#+name: alternative-template
#+begin_src emacs-lisp
  (setq
   org-capture-templates
   '(
     ("g" "Save reference to review tag"
      checkitem
      (file+headline "review.org" "Review Tags")
      "  - [ ] %a\n%c" :immediate-finish t)
     ("r" "Review Comment (email)"
      checkitem
      (file+headline "review.org" "Review Comments")
      "  - [ ] %a")))
#+end_src

But that seemed to cause problems when capturing multiple checkbox
links in a row. Maybe there is some way to stuff some meta-data in the
link?

However ideally I'd like to solve the problem of programitically
following org-links as I'd like to automate the bringing up of review
comments when I doing re-basing.

It is of course possible that I'm abusing org-mode a bit too much using
it in this way and I should use something more database like to store
this stuff. However I would appreciate any suggestions of ways to tackle
this problem.

Regards,


--
Alex Bennée