When running devtool modify for a recipe that creates changes outside of a patch file, devtool attempts to commit those changes and fails due to an exception in meta/lib/oe/patch.py in the poky repository. The output in this case also isn't great as it points to log files for tasks which don't actually indicate any failure.

Example recipe which triggers this bug: https://github.com/qualcomm-linux/meta-qcom-hwe/blob/scarthgap/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-qcom-custom_6.6.bb#L137

The copy_msm() function in that recipe directly modifies the source checkout, which triggers commitIgnored() to be called in meta/lib/oe/patch.py. commitIgnored() then calls GitApplyTree.addNote() with incorrect arguments, which triggers the exception.

I think there just needs to be an explicit None as the fourth argument, before the user name argument. If I add a try/except around the call to GitApplyTree.addNote() and print the exception, it's clear that the missing fourth argument shifts the email into the user name and leaves the email missing:

ERROR: Command Error: 'git -c 'user.name="oe.patch@oe"' notes --ref refs/notes/devtool append -m 'ignore: OpenEmbedded' HEAD' exited with 0  Output:
stdout:
stderr: Author identity unknown

*** Please tell me who you are.

Run

  git config --global user.email "you@example.com"
  git config --global user.name "Your Name"

to set your account's default identity.
Omit --global to set the identity only in this repository.

fatal: unable to auto-detect email address (got 'user@769b18e0f79c.(none)')

I've marked this with version 5.0.9 as that's specifically what I'm using/testing with, but it appears that the same bug is present at the tips of the scarthgap, walnascar, master, and master-next branches.