Githooks

In most cases, the action will be cancelled if you exit the process with non-zero, process.exit(1);.

This is based on the excellent work by Justin Ellingwood and Mark Longair, but tweaked to test using nodejs rather than bash. Another good source for information is Atlassian's githooks tutorial.

As I have never used git am, the hooks explored do not include applypatch-msg, pre-applypatch or post-apply-patch.

In all the files __dirname returns (unsurprisingly) .git/hooks.

Basic code examples

Process docs

Use process.exit(int); to exit, where int = 0 means success, others (preferred 1) means failure

To get the arguments, you can use process.argv, but I recommend Yargs since you can then also finetune which arguments your script requires.

process.env contains the environmental variables, and process.cwd() gives you CWD in an easier way.

Finally, this will get you the refs emitted to STDIN:

var readline = require('readline'),
    rl = readline.createInterface({
        input: process.stdin,
        output: process.stdout
    });

rl.on('line', function (refLine) {
    var refs = refLine.split(' ');

    // refs is now an array of the references, see specific hooks for details
}).on('close', function () {
    process.exit(0);
});

git commit

CWD is set to the top level of the working tree in all of the following hooks.

pre-commit

• Timing: before message
• Parameters: none

node .git/hooks/pre-commit
OLDPWD '.git'
GIT_PREFIX: '',
GIT_DIR: '.git',
GIT_AUTHOR_NAME: 'Marie Hogebrandt',
GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL: 'marie@pineberry.com',
GIT_AUTHOR_DATE: '@1425539426 +0100',
GIT_INDEX_FILE: '.git/index',
GIT_EDITOR: ':'

Usage suggestions

* Test
* Lint
* Check that prior commit is not a WIP

prepare-commit-msg

• Timing: after default message generated, before invoking editor
• Parameters
  • message file name
  • message source type
    • message with -m or -F option
    • template with -t option
    • merge (if the commit is a merge commit)
    • squash (if the commit is squashing other commits).
    • Empty if none of the above
  • SHA1 hash of commit (only with -c, -C, or --amend)

node .git/hooks/prepare-commit-msg .git/COMMIT_EDITMSG message
GIT_PREFIX: '',
GIT_DIR: '.git',
GIT_AUTHOR_NAME: 'Marie Hogebrandt',
GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL: 'marie@pineberry.com',
GIT_AUTHOR_DATE: '@1425539426 +0100',
GIT_INDEX_FILE: '.git/index',
GIT_EDITOR: ':'

Usage suggestions

* Add issue #

commit-msg

• Timing: inspect, edit, and format the message
• Parameters
  • message file name

node .git/hooks/commit-msg .git/COMMIT_EDITMSG
GIT_PREFIX: '',
GIT_DIR: '.git',
GIT_AUTHOR_NAME: 'Marie Hogebrandt',
GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL: 'marie@pineberry.com',
GIT_AUTHOR_DATE: '@1425539426 +0100',
GIT_INDEX_FILE: '.git/index',
GIT_EDITOR: ':'

Usage suggestions

* Check that commit message follows rules

post-commit

• Timing: after commit finished
• Parameters: none
• Note: Since this is after the action, process.exit(1); does not stop the commit. To get information about the commit, you could use git rev-parse HEAD or git log -l HEAD

node .git/hooks/post-commit
GIT_PREFIX: '',
GIT_DIR: '.git',
GIT_AUTHOR_NAME: 'Marie Hogebrandt',
GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL: 'marie@pineberry.com',
GIT_AUTHOR_DATE: '@1425539426 +0100',
GIT_INDEX_FILE: '.git/index',
GIT_EDITOR: ':'

Usage suggestions

* Notify someone

post-rewrite

• Timing: after rewriting action (git commit --amend or git rebase)
• Parameters
  • Type: amend if git commit --amend, rebase if git rebase
• Note: Since this is after the action, process.exit(1); does not stop the rewrite
• STDIN gets refs: [old sha1] [new sha1]

node .git/hooks/post-rewrite [amend|rebase]
GIT_PREFIX: '', (if amend)
GIT_DIR: '.git', (if amend)
GIT_AUTHOR_NAME: 'Marie Hogebrandt',
GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL: 'marie@pineberry.com',
GIT_AUTHOR_DATE: '@1425560809 +0100',
GIT_REFLOG_ACTION: 'rebase' (if rebase)

Usage suggestions

* Similar to post-checkout and post-merge

git gc --auto

pre-auto-gc

• Timing: before automatic garbage collection
• Parameters: unknown (doesn't trigger automatically)

node .git/hooks/pre-auto-gc

Usage suggestions

* Notify someone
* Abort collection

git checkout or git clone

CWD is set to the top level of the working tree in all of the following hooks.

That this runs on git clone is less relevant in most cases, as it's a user-level hook.

post-checkout

• Timing: after worktree is changed
• Parameters
  • Previous HEAD ref
  • New HEAD ref
  • Type flag: 0 for file checkout, 1 for branch checkout
• Note: Since this is after the action, process.exit(1); does not stop the checkout or cloning.

node .git/hooks/post-checkout [SHA1 hash] [SHA1 hash] [0|1]
GIT_PREFIX: '',
GIT_DIR: '.git'

Usage suggestions

* Delete generated files
* Update dependencies
* Alter working directory depending on branch
* Copy in binaries
* Auto-generate documentation

git rebase

CWD is set to the top level of the working tree in all of the following hooks.

pre-rebase

• Timing: before rebase
• Parameters
  • Upstream branch name
  • Rebased branch name (empty if current branch)

node .git/hooks/post-checkout master test
GIT_REFLOG_ACTION: 'rebase'

Usage suggestions

* Ensure that rebasing isn't a bad idea

git merge or git pull

CWD is set to the top level of the working tree in all of the following hooks.

post-merge

• Timing: after successful merge completed
• Parameters
  • Is squash (0 or 1)

node .git/hooks/post-merge [0|1]
GIT_PREFIX: '',
GIT_DIR: '.git',
GIT_REFLOG_ACTION: '[merge [branch]|pull]'

Usage suggestions

* Similar to post-checkout in usage

git push

CWD is set to the top level of the working tree in pre-push, however all server-side scripts have CWD = .git. Anything printed to the terminal is returned to the local script with "remote: " prepending every row.

pre-push

• Timing: before pushing
• Parameters
  • Name of remote
  • Url to which the push is being done
• STDIN gets [local ref] [local sha1] [remote ref] [remote sha1] (1 line/ref)

node .git/hooks/pre-push origin git@something:etc
GIT_PREFIX: ''

Usage suggestions

* Check that it's not a WIP branch (based on commit-message)

pre-receive

• Timing: before the first ref is updated
• Parameters: none
• Note: Server-side
• STDIN gets refs: [remote sha1] [local sha1] [local ref] (1 line/ref)
• Error: ! [remote rejected] test -> test (pre-receive hook declined)

node .git/hooks/pre-receive
GIT_DIR: '.'

Usage suggestions

* Check permissions on user level

update

• Timing: before each ref is updated (so, 2 branches or tags means it's called twice)
• Parameters
  • Local ref
  • Remote sha1
  • Local sha1
• Note: Server-side. process.exit(1); will stop only that specific ref from being pushed
• Error: ! [remote rejected] test -> test (hook declined)

node .git/hooks/update refs/heads/test f3d7c49c850f9ad7559d41432496556b53599e50 b7cf9aeb4ce372c497dd0fe6057c06739a9d5bd8
GIT_DIR: '.'

Usage suggestions

* Test
* Lint
* Rejecting changes that involve an upstream rebase
* Preventing non-fast-forward merges
* Check permissions on user/ref level

post-receive

• Timing: after the last ref is updated
• Parameters: none
• Note: Server-side. Since this is after the action, process.exit(1); does not stop the push
• STDIN gets refs: [remote sha1] [local sha1] [local ref] (1 line/ref)

node .git/hooks/post-receive
GIT_DIR: '.'

Usage suggestions

* Trigger CI (build + deploy)
* Push to another remote
* Notify someone

post-update

• Timing: after the last ref is updated
• Parameters
  • Updated refs
• Note: Server-side. Since this is after the action, process.exit(1); does not stop the push

node .git/hooks/post-update refs_1 ref_2
GIT_DIR: '.'

Usage suggestions

* Sync issues with Watson