How can I manually run a Git pre-commit hook, without attempting a commit?

Question

I just want to be able to run it to see if the code in my working tree passes it, without actually attempting a commit.

Barde

Note: Git 2.36 (Q1 2022) will come with git hook run [--ignore-missing] <hook-name> [-- <hook-args>]! – Fossick

Late to the party, but it's a popular question, yet percieved to be ambigious if you read the comments in the answers below. Please add a line or two describing if you're after native shell functionality or something like python based pre-commit from pre-commit.com. – Mycosis

Answer 1

Just run the pre-commit script through the shell:

bash .git/hooks/pre-commit

Orvil

Oh it's that easy. Also seems they are directly executable, so you can do ./.git/hooks/precommit – Barde

Yes, it is also directly executable. – Orvil

This won't detect/correct all problems in all existing files - for that, you want pre-commit run --all-files, see my answer here. – Janinajanine

If you find that this doesn't do anything, don't forget to git add the files! – Kohler

@Janinajanine note that this answer does not refer to the python pre-commit package but rather the native git pre-commit hook. Your command will not work for someone who just uses native git hooks – Burgett

This is perfect, also works for any hook, like pre-push hook ! Thanks ! – Flofloat

Note: you need to be in your repository root dir for this to work. E.g. If you're in a subdirectory and do ../.git/hooks/pre-commit, it won't recognize the files you've added to your git workspace. – Cursed

This answer assumed that pre-commit is a bash shell script. It doesn't have to be. – Immovable

.git/hooks/pre-commit must be a bash script: git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Internals-Environment-Variables "Git always runs inside a bash shell" – Mycosis

Answer does not work in the case of working on a submodule. Executing via pre-commit per @Janinajanine does. – Apterous

1 more note: This .git/hooks/pre-commit does only exist once per worktree, so if you use this feature and your are not on your "main" worktree: go and find your .git/hooks/pre-commit in your main worktree. – Commodity

Answer 2

There's a Python package for this available here. Per the usage documentation:

If you want to manually run all pre-commit hooks on a repository, run pre-commit run --all-files. To run individual hooks use pre-commit run <hook_id>.

So pre-commit run --all-files is what the OP is after.

Janinajanine

Note this pre-commit isn't the git pre-commit. Rather, it's a python package from pre-commit.com that installs a git pre-commit script. However, the python package is what I came here looking for, so upvote for you. – Cullis

The alternative way is to specify pre-commit hook (pylint in this case) and file need to be checked: pre-commit run pylint --files common/main.py – Jacobs

This was the right answer for my google search, but the OP question was ambiguous. – Draco

Note that you need to have git installed, otherwise you would get this error: An error has occurred: FatalError: git failed. Is it installed, and are you in a Git repository directory?. It is relevant since I wanted to create a GitLab job that runs pre-commit to check if the repo was clean. – Phillip

Note that if you have hooks which modify files (such as black) then you will potentially end up modifying a ton of files you didn't intend to with this command. You probably want those changes eventually, but not half way through an existing commit. – Nibelung

Answer 3

For a single file:

pre-commit run --files YOUR_FILENAME

Grum

You also need to specify hook e.g. pre-commit run trailing-whitespace --files path\to\file – Alderson

Answer 4

Just run git commit. You don't have to add anything before doing this, hence in the end you get the message no changes added to commit.

Cinematography

At least for me it just says Skipped for all the commit hooks in that case. (might depend on which method / way you use for the pre-commit hooks, we use the Python package named pre-commit) – Delubrum

@Delubrum by default it will run only on changed files, I think. Run pre-commit run --all-files to confirm you can enforce the full repo scan – Threatt

Please delete this answer. It completely misses the all the points made in some of the more useful answers above. – Mycosis

Answer 5

In recent git releases, you can use the git hook run command to accomplish at least some of this. Check out the command at enter link description here

Workingman