Development with Git Hooks

Waiting for CI pipelines to fail on simple formatting errors or lint violations slows down developer feedback loops. Client-side Git hooks allow teams to run fast checks locally before code is committed or pushed.

Client-Side Hooks

Git hooks are executable scripts located in .git/hooks/. Key lifecycle hooks include:

• pre-commit: Runs before a commit message is entered. Ideal for running linters, code formatters, and static analysis.
• commit-msg: Inspects the commit message format (e.g. enforcing Conventional Commits like feat:, fix:).
• pre-push: Runs before remote refs are updated. Suitable for quick unit tests.

Setting Up a Pre-Commit Hook

Here is an example pre-commit hook that ensures Go code is formatted and passes tests:

#!/bin/sh
set -e

echo "🔍 Running gofmt check..."
DIFF=$(gofmt -l .)
if [ -n "$DIFF" ]; then
    echo "❌ Unformatted Go files detected:"
    echo "$DIFF"
    echo "Run 'gofmt -w .' before committing."
    exit 1
fi

echo "🧪 Running unit tests..."
go test ./... -short -race

echo "✅ All pre-commit checks passed!"

Sharing Hooks with Teams

Because .git/hooks is not tracked by version control, teams can configure Git to use a versioned directory:

git config core.hooksPath .githooks

Placing your team's scripts in .githooks allows everyone to share the same pre-commit and commit-msg checks seamlessly.