use-package unknowns

:emacs:
Mar 08, 2026

I've been using Emacs with use-package for a long time. There are plenty of articles and blog post which explain the usage and details of use-package. I can recommend this blog post from batsov where he explains many details.

In the last week I stumbled across a configuration problem with org-super-agenda. I customized the org-agenda-custom-commands in the init section and enabled the mode with (org-super-agenda-mode 1) in the config section. It doesn't work correctly as the I was forced to disable and re-enable the mode to use the customized agenda views.

Turns out that even if :ensure t is set in the beginning of the package definition, a :general section which keybindings defer the package loading through setting autoload definitions for the key bindings. This prevents the correct initialization of org-super-agenda and the agenda views bindings are shown but the definitions are missing.

I wish this would be stated more clearly in the documentation of general or use-package.

If you have questions or recommendations feel free to write.