Use of scm-diff-editor will create an extra JJ-INSTRUCTIONS change in jj split

[ccll]

Description

While the bug below has not been fixed, I'm trying to use the vanilla scm-diff-editor as said to work.

• file deletion ignored by jj split (when using the built-in diff editor) #3702

It works on deleted files when jj split, but has another issue: a dummy JJ-INSTRUCTIONS appears as a change.

Steps to Reproduce the Problem

1. install scm-diff-editor
   cargo install scm-diff-editor

2. set diff-editor to scm-diff-editor

[ui]
diff-editor = "scm-diff-editor"

[merge-tools.scm-diff-editor]
program = "scm-diff-editor"
edit-args = ["--dir-diff", "$left", "$right"]

3. jj split

Expected Behavior

Just show the exact changes, nothing more, nothing less.

Actual Behavior

Specifications

• Platform: Windows 11
• Version: jj 0.23.0-5de285f5eb727b613434979cd9d83c30cabaffae

[arxanas]

Does the file actually get committed? I had thought the file appears for all diff editors, and is ignored regardless of whether it gets selected.

[arxanas]

Does the file actually get committed? I had thought the file appears for all diff editors, and is ignored regardless of whether it gets selected.

If it's true that selecting/unselecting JJ-INSTRUCTIONS doesn't affect the outcome, then we should probably add a note to JJ-INSTRUCTIONS itself that it doesn't matter what you do with it.

It's also interesting that JJ-INSTRUCTIONS doesn't appear for the built-in editor. I don't recall if that was intentional or not. It would be nice if scm-record were intuitive enough to not require instructions, but I think that's not the case at present 🤣.

I also opened arxanas/scm-record#78 to suggest adding a more-integrated way of providing help text with the built-in editor.

[ccll]

Does the file actually get committed? I had thought the file appears for all diff editors, and is ignored regardless of whether it gets selected.

Confirm that the JJ-INSTRUCTIONS file does NOT get committed, so it's just a little annoying rather than actual harmful.

[martinvonz]

I think this is working as intended then. See https://martinvonz.github.io/jj/latest/config/#jj-instructions for how to disable the JJ-INSTRUCTIONS file. Feel free to reopen if you think there's something else we should do.

[arxanas]

@martinvonz I think action items here would be

• Update the instruction text to clarify that it won't be committed
• Update the instruction text to specify how to disable it

@ccll Would those have helped you in this case? Perhaps you're interested in trying the above?

[ccll]

@ccll Would those have helped you in this case? Perhaps you're interested in trying the above?

I've disabled the file with @martinvonz 's suggestion.
However I think your action 2 might be a great idea for anyone that missed the document like me.