Ask Claude to Write Git Hooks That Enforce Your Team's Standards on Every Commit

Git hooks are the last line of defense before bad code enters your repo, but writing them by hand means dealing with bash quirks, exit codes, and edge cases. Tell Claude what you want to enforce and it writes the hook scripts ready to drop into .git/hooks/ or your hooks manager.

> write a pre-commit hook that runs our linter and formatter on
> staged files only — don't check files that aren't being committed

Claude reads your project to find which linter and formatter you use, then writes a hook that targets only staged files — so it's fast and only blocks commits that actually introduce problems.

#!/bin/sh
# .git/hooks/pre-commit — Claude generates this
STAGED_PHP=$(git diff --cached --name-only --diff-filter=ACM | grep '\.php$')
if [ -n "$STAGED_PHP" ]; then
    vendor/bin/pint --test $STAGED_PHP || {
        echo "Fix formatting: vendor/bin/pint"
        exit 1
    }
fi

You can ask for multiple hooks at once:

> create git hooks for our team:
> - pre-commit: run Pint on staged PHP files, ESLint on staged JS
> - commit-msg: enforce conventional commit format (feat:, fix:, etc.)
> - pre-push: run the test suite before allowing push to main

> also create a setup script that installs these hooks for
> new team members

Claude generates each hook and a setup script. For teams using Husky, lint-staged, or Lefthook, Claude writes the config for your hook manager instead of raw shell scripts:

> we use Husky — configure pre-commit to run lint-staged with
> Pint for PHP and Prettier for JS/CSS

Common hooks Claude can write:

• Pre-commit — lint, format, check for dd(), console.log, TODO markers, or secrets
• Commit-msg — enforce conventional commits, max length, issue number references
• Pre-push — run tests, check branch protection, prevent force-push to main
• Post-merge — auto-run composer install or npm install when lock files change

Git hooks enforce standards silently — every developer on the team follows the rules without thinking about it.

via Claude Code