Git Hooks

Git hooks are scripts which Git runs automatically when something happens, like before a commit or after a push. You can use them to check your code, run tests, or check commit messages. They live in the folder .git/hooks of each repository.

Common hooks

Hook	When it runs	Typical use
pre-commit	Before a commit is created	Run linter or tests, find debug code
commit-msg	After you write the message	Check the message format
pre-push	Before a push	Run the full test suite
post-merge	After a merge	Install new dependencies
post-checkout	After a branch switch	Clean build files

If a “pre” hook exits with a non zero status, Git stops the action.

Create a pre-commit hook

This hook blocks the commit if a staged file contains the word TODO.

#!/bin/sh
# block commit if a staged file has TODO
if git diff --cached | grep -q "^+.*TODO"; then
  echo "Commit blocked: remove TODO comments first."
  exit 1
fi
exit 0

The file must be executable. Then we test it with a file that has a TODO and then a clean one.

Skip a hook

git commit --no-verify -m "Emergency fix"

Share hooks with the team

The .git/hooks folder is not part of the repository, so hooks are not shared by git push. A common way is to keep the hooks in a normal folder like .githooks inside the project, and tell Git to use it:

git config core.hooksPath .githooks

Tools like Husky (for JavaScript) and pre-commit (for Python) make this easier.

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