Running it on a schedule

With authors and trees in the config, one timer keeps everything current, and news then shows what changed since you last looked. A quiet incremental sync is a single request, so every two hours is plenty.

A systemd user service and timer:

# ~/.config/systemd/user/patchtrack.service
[Unit]
Description=patchtrack: sync mail, check trees, write the board

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/bin/sh -c 'patchtrack sync && patchtrack check --fetch; patchtrack board -o %h/patchtrack-board.html'

# ~/.config/systemd/user/patchtrack.timer
[Unit]
Description=Run patchtrack every two hours

[Timer]
OnCalendar=0/2:00
RandomizedDelaySec=10m
Persistent=true

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

Then:

systemctl --user enable --now patchtrack.timer

If patchtrack is not on the user manager’s PATH (see systemctl --user show-environment), write its full path, e.g. %h/.local/bin/patchtrack after pip install --user.