diff --git a/kernelci/build.py b/kernelci/build.py
index e4ee20ac0c..e078406dd7 100644
--- a/kernelci/build.py
+++ b/kernelci/build.py
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@
 import tarfile
 import time
 import urllib.parse
+import tempfile
 
 import requests
 from kernelci import shell_cmd, print_flush, __version__ as kernelci_version
@@ -321,6 +322,20 @@ def _download_file(url, dest_filename, chunk_size=1024):
     return False
 
 
+def apply_patch_mbox(path, mbox_url):
+    with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(prefix="kernel-patch-") as tmp_f:
+        if not _download_file(mbox_url, tmp_f.name):
+            raise FileNotFoundError(f"Error downloading patch mbox {mbox_url}")
+
+        shell_cmd("""
+set -e
+cd {path}
+git config user.name "kernelci-tsc"
+git config user.email "kernelci-tsc@groups.io"
+git am --3way {mbox_file}
+""".format(path=path, mbox_file=tmp_f.name))
+
+
 def pull_tarball(kdir, url, dest_filename, retries, delete):
     if os.path.exists(kdir):
         shutil.rmtree(kdir)