Generated Thu May 21 18:08:24 CEST 2026

BARK! Another Report Keeper

BARK monitors a mailbox and turns incoming emails into reports. Replies in the same thread update each report through a small fixed vocabulary of commands. Maintainers can also write to the inbox directly to manage roles and receive periodic digests.

To browse BARK reports from the terminal, use bone. Companion modes for Emacs: gnus-bone.el and notmuch-bone.el.

For maintainers, see the full BARK manual.

Subject labels

A subject label creates a report, optionally carrying a topic and/or version:

Type Subject labels
bug [BUG <topic>]
patch [PATCH <topic> <version> <n/m>]
request [FR <topic>] [FP <topic>] [RFC <topic>] [POLL <topic>] [TASK <topic>]
announcement [ANNOUNCEMENT <topic>] [ANN <topic>] [BLOG <topic>] [TIP <topic>]
release [REL <topic> <version>] [RELEASE <topic> <version>]
change [CHG <topic> <version>] [CHANGE <topic> <version>]

All <…> parts are optional and positional.

Also accepted: [ANNOUNCEMENT], [RELEASE], [CHANGE] (long forms, equivalent to their 3-letter counterparts).

For release and change, a single value is read as <version>: [REL 2.0] sets version to "2.0". Use both for topic and version: [REL parser 2.0].

The topic can also be set with a colon prefix after the label: [BUG] parser: crash on empty input sets the topic to "parser".

Status & priority commands

Replies to a report update it with command keywords such as Fixed. or Applied..

A command keyword goes at the beginning of a line, followed by punctuation (. , ; : ? !), whitespace, or end of line.

Recommended keyword per action, with the matching retract form:

Effect on report Command keyword Type
Mark as acked Acked Confirmed Approved Status
Mark as owned Owned Status
Mark as closed (canceled) Canceled Cancelled Status
Mark as closed (expired) Expired Status
Mark as closed (resolved) Closed Resolved Applied Completed Fixed Status
Mark as urgent Urgent. Priority
Mark as important Important. Priority

Announcements, releases and changes cannot be acked or owned but can still be marked closed, urgent or important.

Also accepted for ack: Acked, Confirmed, Approved. Also accepted for close: Resolved, Closed, Applied, Fixed, Completed.

Priority is not set directly: it is the sum of important (+1) and urgent (+2).

Urgent. and Important. require a punctuation mark or end of line -- a bare space is rejected (these words appear too often in ordinary prose).

You can combine several commands in one email:

Confirmed.
Owned.
Urgent.
Important.

Searching via the web page

Long form Short Explanation
from:me@example.org f: Reports from me@example.org
acked:me@example.org a: Reports acked by me@example.org
owned:me@example.org o: Reports owned by me@example.org
closed:me@example.org c: Reports closed by me@example.org
closed:true c:true Include closed reports (bypass Open filter, transient)
urgent:me@example.org u: Reports marked urgent by me@example.org
important:me@example.org i: Reports marked important by me@example.org
subject:match s: Reports matching subject
topic:match t: Reports matching topic
priority:[0-4] p: Reports matching priority level 0 to 4
mid:<...> m: Report with message-id <...>
date:3d.. d: Reports from the last 3 days
date:2023-01-01..2023-12-31 d: Reports between 2023-01-01 and 2023-12-31
deadline:2026-09-01 D: Reports due on 2026-09-01
deadline:2026-01-01..2026-06-30 D: Reports due in that range
deadline:2m D: Reports due between now and 2 months from now
expired:10d e: Reports expiring within 10 days
expired:2026-01-01..2026-03-31 e: Reports expiring in that range
match1 | match2 Reports matching "match1" or "match2"
from:* acked:* … f:* a:* … Wildcard for from/acked/owned/closed/urgent/important

Durations: Nd (days), Nw (weeks), Nm (months).

date: looks backward from today; deadline: and expired: look forward.

Combine filters freely: D:2m o:user@email.com finds reports due within 2 months and owned by user@email.com.

Maintainers

Configuration

Here is how to configure this source in your BARK instance:

{:name "Org mode ML",
 :bark-path "https://tracker.orgmode.org/",
 :list "emacs-orgmode.gnu.org",
 :maintainers
 ["yantar92@posteo.net"
  "bzg@bzg.fr"
  "bzg@gnu.org"
  "mail@christianmoe.com"],
 :labels
 {:request ["FR" "FP" "RFC" "POLL" "TASK"],
  :announcement ["ANNOUNCEMENT" "ANN" "BLOG" "TIP"]},
 :periods
 [{:start "2020-01-01",
   :end "2026-04-19",
   :commands
   {:owned {:words ["Owned" "Handled"]},
    :closed
    {:words
     ["Canceled"
      "Cancelled"
      "Closed"
      "Expired"
      "Resolved"
      "Applied"
      "Completed"
      "Fixed"
      "Done"]}}}],
 :archive-format-string "https://list.orgmode.org/%s"}