2 files changed, 5 insertions, 2 deletions
diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING b/CONTRIBUTING
index e2c352e7..d2adcf03 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING
@@ -12,11 +12,11 @@ A short list of contribution guidelines:
 
   Please use --subject-prefix="PATCH i-g-t" so that i-g-t patches are easily
   identified in the massive amount mails on intel-gfx. To ensure this is always
-  done just run
+  done, autogen.sh will run:
 
     git config format.subjectprefix "PATCH i-g-t"
 
-  from within your i-g-t git checkout.
+  on its first invocation.
 
 - intel-gpu-tools is MIT lincensed and we require contributions to follow the
   developer's certificate of origin: http://developercertificate.org/
diff --git a/autogen.sh b/autogen.sh
index ec633f3e..53df7525 100755
--- a/autogen.sh
+++ b/autogen.sh
@@ -16,6 +16,9 @@ fi
 autoreconf -v --install || exit 1
 cd $ORIGDIR || exit $?
 
+git config --local --get format.subjectPrefix >/dev/null 2>&1 ||
+    git config --local format.subjectPrefix "PATCH i-g-t"
+
 if test -z "$NOCONFIGURE"; then
         $srcdir/configure "$@"
 fi