git-hook(1) Git Manual git-hook(1)
NAME
git-hook - Run Git hooks
SYNOPSIS
git hook run [--allow-unknown-hook-name] [--ignore-missing] [--to-stdin=<path>] [(-j|--jobs) <n>]
<hook-name> [-- <hook-args>]
git hook list [--allow-unknown-hook-name] [-z] [--show-scope] <hook-name>
DESCRIPTION
A command interface for running Git hooks (see githooks(5)), for use by
other scripted Git commands.
This command parses the default configuration files for sets of configs
like so:
[hook "linter"]
event = pre-commit
command = ~/bin/linter --cpp20
In this example, [hook "linter"] represents one script - ~/bin/linter
--cpp20 - which can be shared by many repos, and even by many hook
events, if appropriate.
To add an unrelated hook which runs on a different event, for example a
spell-checker for your commit messages, you would write a configuration
like so:
[hook "linter"]
event = pre-commit
command = ~/bin/linter --cpp20
[hook "spellcheck"]
event = commit-msg
command = ~/bin/spellchecker
With this config, when you run git commit, first ~/bin/linter --cpp20
will have a chance to check your files to be committed (during the
pre-commit hook event), and then ~/bin/spellchecker will have a chance
to check your commit message (during the commit-msg hook event).
Commands are run in the order Git encounters their associated
hook.<friendly-name>.event configs during the configuration parse (see
git-config(1)). Although multiple hook.linter.event configs can be
added, only one hook.linter.command event is valid - Git uses
"last-one-wins" to determine which command to run.
So if you wanted your linter to run when you commit as well as when you
push, you would configure it like so:
[hook "linter"]
event = pre-commit
event = pre-push
command = ~/bin/linter --cpp20
With this config, ~/bin/linter --cpp20 would be run by Git before a
commit is generated (during pre-commit) as well as before a push is
performed (during pre-push).
And if you wanted to run your linter as well as a secret-leak detector
during only the "pre-commit" hook event, you would configure it instead
like so:
[hook "linter"]
event = pre-commit
command = ~/bin/linter --cpp20
[hook "no-leaks"]
event = pre-commit
command = ~/bin/leak-detector
With this config, before a commit is generated (during pre-commit), Git
would first start ~/bin/linter --cpp20 and second start
~/bin/leak-detector. It would evaluate the output of each when deciding
whether to proceed with the commit.
For a full list of hook events which you can set your
hook.<friendly-name>.event to, and how hooks are invoked during those
events, see githooks(5).
Git will ignore any hook.<friendly-name>.event that specifies an event
it doesn't recognize. This is intended so that tools which wrap Git can
use the hook infrastructure to run their own hooks; see "WRAPPERS" for
more guidance.
In general, when instructions suggest adding a script to
.git/hooks/<hook-event>, you can specify it in the config instead by
running:
git config set hook.<some-name>.command <path-to-script>
git config set --append hook.<some-name>.event <hook-event>
This way you can share the script between multiple repos. That is, cp
~/my-script.sh ~/project/.git/hooks/pre-commit would become:
git config set hook.my-script.command ~/my-script.sh
git config set --append hook.my-script.event pre-commit
SUBCOMMANDS
run
Runs hooks configured for <hook-name>, in the order they are
discovered during the config parse. The default <hook-name> from
the hookdir is run last. See githooks(5) for supported hook names.
Any positional arguments to the hook should be passed after a
mandatory -- (or --end-of-options, see gitcli(7)). See githooks(5)
for arguments hooks might expect (if any).
list [-z] [--show-scope]
Print a list of hooks which will be run on <hook-name> event. If no
hooks are configured for that event, print a warning and return 1.
Use -z to terminate output lines with NUL instead of newlines.
OPTIONS
--allow-unknown-hook-name
By default git hook run and git hook list will bail out when
<hook-name> is not a hook event known to Git (see githooks(5) for
the list of known hooks). This is meant to help catch typos such as
prereceive when pre-receive was intended. Pass this flag to allow
unknown hook names.
--to-stdin
For "run"; specify a file which will be streamed into the hook's
stdin. The hook will receive the entire file from beginning to EOF.
--ignore-missing
Ignore any missing hook by quietly returning zero. Used for tools
that want to do a blind one-shot run of a hook that may or may not
be present.
-z
Terminate "list" output lines with NUL instead of newlines.
--show-scope
For "list"; prefix each configured hook's friendly name with a
tab-separated config scope (e.g. local, global, system), mirroring
the output style of git config --show-scope. Traditional hooks from
the hookdir are unaffected.
-j, --jobs
Only valid for run.
Specify how many hooks to run simultaneously. If this flag is not
specified, the value of the hook.jobs config is used, see git-
config(1). If neither is specified, defaults to 1 (serial
execution).
When greater than 1, it overrides the per-hook
hook.<friendly-name>.parallel setting, allowing all hooks for the
event to run concurrently, even if they are not individually marked
as parallel.
Some hooks always run sequentially regardless of this flag or the
hook.jobs config, because Git knows they cannot safely run in
parallel: applypatch-msg, pre-commit, prepare-commit-msg,
commit-msg, post-commit, post-checkout, and push-to-checkout.
WRAPPERS
git hook run has been designed to make it easy for tools which wrap Git
to configure and execute hooks using the Git hook infrastructure. It is
possible to provide arguments and stdin via the command line, as well
as specifying parallel or series execution if the user has provided
multiple hooks.
Assuming your wrapper wants to support a hook named
"mywrapper-start-tests", you can have your users specify their hooks
like so:
[hook "setup-test-dashboard"]
event = mywrapper-start-tests
command = ~/mywrapper/setup-dashboard.py --tap
Then, in your mywrapper tool, you can invoke any users' configured
hooks by running:
git hook run --allow-unknown-hook-name mywrapper-start-tests \
# providing something to stdin
--stdin some-tempfile-123 \
# execute multiple hooks in parallel
--jobs 3 \
# plus some arguments of your own...
-- \
--testname bar \
baz
Take care to name your wrapper's hook events in a way which is unlikely
to overlap with Git's native hooks (see githooks(5)) - a hook event
named mywrappertool-validate-commit is much less likely to be added to
native Git than a hook event named validate-commit. If Git begins to
use a hook event named the same thing as your wrapper hook, it may
invoke your users' hooks in unintended and unsupported ways.
CONFIGURATION
hook.<friendly-name>.command
The command to execute for hook.<friendly-name>. <friendly-name>
is a unique name that identifies this hook. The hook events that
trigger the command are configured with hook.<friendly-name>.event.
The value can be an executable path or a shell oneliner. If more
than one value is specified for the same <friendly-name>, only the
last value parsed is used.
hook.<friendly-name>.event
The hook events that trigger hook.<friendly-name>. The value is the
name of a hook event, like "pre-commit" or "update". (See
githooks(5) for a complete list of hook events.) On the specified
event, the associated hook.<friendly-name>.command is executed.
This is a multi-valued key. To run hook.<friendly-name> on multiple
events, specify the key more than once. An empty value resets the
list of events, clearing any previously defined events for
hook.<friendly-name>.
The <friendly-name> must not be the same as a known hook event name
(e.g. do not use hook.pre-commit.event). Using a known event name
as a friendly-name is a fatal error because it creates an ambiguity
with hook.<event>.enabled and hook.<event>.jobs. For unknown event
names, a warning is issued when <friendly-name> matches the event
value.
hook.<friendly-name>.enabled
Whether the hook hook.<friendly-name> is enabled. Defaults to true.
Set to false to disable the hook without removing its
configuration. This is particularly useful when a hook is defined
in a system or global config file and needs to be disabled for a
specific repository.
hook.<friendly-name>.parallel
Whether the hook hook.<friendly-name> may run in parallel with
other hooks for the same event. Defaults to false. Set to true only
when the hook script is safe to run concurrently with other hooks
for the same event. If any hook for an event does not have this set
to true, all hooks for that event run sequentially regardless of
hook.jobs. Only configured (named) hooks need to declare this.
Traditional hooks found in the hooks directory do not need to, and
run in parallel when the effective job count is greater than 1.
hook.<event>.enabled
Switch to enable or disable all hooks for the <event> hook event.
When set to false, no hooks fire for that event, regardless of any
per-hook hook.<friendly-name>.enabled settings. Defaults to true.
Note on naming: <event> must be the event name (e.g. pre-commit),
not a hook friendly-name. Since using a known event name as a
friendly-name is disallowed (see hook.<friendly-name>.event above),
there is no ambiguity between event-level and per-hook .enabled
settings for known events. For unknown events, if a friendly-name
matches the event name despite the warning, .enabled is treated as
per-hook only.
hook.<event>.jobs
Specifies how many hooks can be run simultaneously for the <event>
hook event (e.g. hook.post-receive.jobs = 4). Overrides hook.jobs
for this specific event. The same parallelism restrictions apply:
this setting has no effect unless all configured hooks for the
event have hook.<friendly-name>.parallel set to true. Set to -1 to
use the number of available CPU cores. Must be a positive integer
or -1; zero is rejected with a warning.
Note on naming: although this key resembles hook.<friendly-name>.*
(a per-hook setting), <event> must be the event name, not a hook
friendly name. The key component is stored literally and looked up
by event name at runtime with no translation between the two
namespaces. A key like hook.my-hook.jobs is stored under "my-hook"
but the lookup at runtime uses the event name (e.g.
"post-receive"), so hook.my-hook.jobs is silently ignored even when
my-hook is registered for that event. Use hook.post-receive.jobs or
any other valid event name when setting hook.<event>.jobs.
hook.jobs
Specifies how many hooks can be run simultaneously during
parallelized hook execution. If unspecified, defaults to 1 (serial
execution). Set to -1 to use the number of available CPU cores. Can
be overridden on a per-event basis with hook.<event>.jobs. Some
hooks always run sequentially regardless of this setting because
they operate on shared data and cannot safely be parallelized:
applypatch-msg, prepare-commit-msg, commit-msg
Receive a commit message file and may rewrite it in place.
pre-commit, post-checkout, push-to-checkout, post-commit
Access the working tree, index, or repository state.
This setting has no effect unless all configured hooks for the
event have hook.<friendly-name>.parallel set to true.
For pre-push hooks, which normally keep stdout and stderr separate,
setting this to a value greater than 1 (or passing -j) will merge
stdout into stderr to allow correct de-interleaving of parallel
output.
SEE ALSO
githooks(5)
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.55.0 2026-06-29 git-hook(1)
git 2.55.0 - Generated Wed Jul 1 09:29:24 CDT 2026