Why hooks automate workflows in Git - See It in Action

Why hooks automate workflows

📖 Scenario: You are working on a team project using Git. Your team wants to make sure that every time someone tries to commit code, a check runs automatically to prevent mistakes. This helps keep the project clean and error-free.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to use Git hooks to automate a simple workflow that checks commit messages before saving them.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a Git hook script file

Add a simple check in the hook script

Make the hook script executable

Test the hook by making a commit

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Teams use Git hooks to automate checks like code style, tests, or commit message rules to keep code quality high.

💼 Career

Knowing how to create and use Git hooks is useful for developers and DevOps engineers to enforce workflow rules automatically.

1

Create the Git hook script file

Create a file named pre-commit inside the .git/hooks/ directory with the following first line: #!/bin/sh

Git

# Create the pre-commit hook file with the shebang line
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The first line of a shell script is usually #!/bin/sh to tell the system how to run it.

2

Add a simple commit message check

Add a line to the pre-commit script that checks if the commit message file contains the word WIP. Use grep -q WIP .git/COMMIT_EDITMSG and if found, print "Commit message contains WIP, please finish your work before committing." and exit with status 1.

Git

#!/bin/sh
# Add a check for 'WIP' in the commit message
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use grep -q to quietly check for a word, and if found, print a message and exit with 1 to stop the commit.

3

Make the hook script executable

Run the command chmod +x .git/hooks/pre-commit to make the pre-commit script executable.

Git

#!/bin/sh
grep -q WIP .git/COMMIT_EDITMSG && { echo "Commit message contains WIP, please finish your work before committing."; exit 1; }
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use chmod +x to allow the script to run as a program.

4

Test the hook by making a commit

Try to commit with a message containing WIP and observe the output. Use git commit -m "WIP: work in progress" and check that the commit is blocked with the message Commit message contains WIP, please finish your work before committing.

Git

#!/bin/sh
grep -q WIP .git/COMMIT_EDITMSG && { echo "Commit message contains WIP, please finish your work before committing."; exit 1; }
# Test the hook by running:
# git commit -m "WIP: work in progress"
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Try committing with a message that includes 'WIP' to see the hook stop the commit.