Using Git hooks to check your commit code

When developing software in a public Git [1] repository, it's recommended to check for common issues in your code prior to committing your changes. Neglecting to do so could lead to your Git repository being cluttered with commits that just fix some minor syntax or style issue. To err is human. Consequently, relying solely on manual checks isn't enough to deliver quality code.

To address this issue, the Git version control system offers a way to start custom scripts when specific actions occur, such as committing changes or merging branches: Git hooks [2]. These hooks are executable (often shell) scripts, stored in the .git/hooks directory of a Git repository. When you create a new repository with the git init command, this directory is populated with several example scripts (Figure 1). Removing the .sample extension from a file name is all that's necessary to enable this hook.

Figure 1: Each Git repository comes with a set of sample Git hooks.

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