Subject: Re: bug#45435: Additional libraries required by transient and magit manuals

From: Jonas Bernoulli <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 2020 13:49:55 +0100

Stefan Monnier <[email-masked]> writes:

> So maybe rather than look for the solution by re-using the code we
> already have lying around, we should "manually" add the handful of extra
> packages to the builder's `~/.emacs.d/elpa` ?

> The downside would be that it requires a manual step from someone with
> access to `elpa.gnu.org`.

That's what I had in mind and if it were you who kept that up-to-date,
as opposed to some fsf admin, then that could work.

> Or maybe we could keep the contents of that
> `~/.emacs.d/elpa` in a separate branch/directory and just make it
> available to `:make` targets, so anyone with write access to the Git
> repository can add (installed) packages in there.

That is probably the better approach.

Would you want check a copy of these libraries into the "main" branch?
We do that for "package-build.el" in the Melpa repository like so:

pull-package-build:
	git subtree pull --squash -P package-build package-build master

I am not really a fan of that approach but it has the benefit that it is
robust.

Alternatively you could generalize the code that makes "elpa-admin.el"
available.  "./admin" could then serve a similar purpose as "./package",
i.e. "./admin/elpa-admin" would become the worktree that checks out the
"elpa-admin" branch.

Maybe that branch should be renamed to "admin/elpa-admin" and other
admin tools could use "admin/<name>" as well.  Gnu elpa would end up
with two identical branches for "ox-texinfo+": "externals/ox-texinfo+"
and "admin/ox-texinfo+", nongnu elpa however would only feature the
latter.

     Jonas