Konstantin Ryabitsev

Message-ID's are used to identify and retrieve messages from the public-inbox archive on lore.kernel.org, so it's only natural to want to use memorable ones. Or maybe it's just me.

Regardless, here's what I do with neomutt and coolname:

1. If coolname isn't yet packaged for your distro, you can install it with pip:

   pip install --user coolname
   

2. Create this file as ~/bin/my-msgid.py:

   #!/usr/bin/python3
   import sys
   import random
   import string
   import datetime
   import platform
   
   from coolname import generate_slug
   
   parts = []
   parts.append(datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%Y%m%d'))
   parts.append(generate_slug(3))
   parts.append(''.join(random.choices(string.hexdigits, k=6)).lower())
   
   sys.stdout.write('-'.join(parts) + '@' + platform.node().split('.')[0])
   

3. Create this file as ~/.mutt-fix-msgid:

   my_hdr Message-ID: <`/path/to/my/bin/my-msgid.py`>
   

4. Add this to your .muttrc (works with mutt and neomutt):

   send-hook . "source ~/.mutt-fix-msgid"
   

5. Enjoy funky message-id's like 20240227-flawless-capybara-of-drama-e09653@lemur. :)