Re: git hook question

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: May 29, 2026, 05:21 UTC
Message-ID: <20260529052141.GA1099450@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <cc9fda14-d8e8-4982-9a3d-9aa816c0b90c@opperschaap.net>

On Fri, May 29, 2026 at 01:01:34AM -0400, Wesley Schwengle wrote:

Show 6 quoted lines

> I understand the why, normally pre-push gets `<local-ref> SP
> <local-object-name> SP <remote-ref> SP <remote-object-name> LF'. This has a
> similar feel, albeit a different syntax. The difference feels like a minor
> bug, but not one I'm worried about at this moment: you would expect it to
> get the same arguments/parameters as the regular pre-push hook. But I
> digress.

I think the "git hook" command is mostly intended for scripting, and the caller is expected to understand the context and provide the appropriate arguments. The hook command itself doesn't know about what a "pre-push" hook should look like.

So not a bug, but definitely a gotcha that could perhaps be better explained in the documentation.

> My actual question is: Is there a way to tell the hook "Don't give me
> arguments, just run the plain command that is defined". I looked in `man 1
> git-hook', but I was unable to find something that looks like it.

I don't think so; the command is expected to handle (or ignore) the arguments as appropriate. You could obviously write a wrapper script to handle that, but since hook commands are run with a shell you can inline it, like:

  git config hook.npm-test.command 'npm run test #'

Git will paste together the shell command:

  npm run test # "$@"

which then treats everything after the "#" as a comment. The more general form of this trick is to use a shell function, like:

  f() { your_cmd_here; }; f

which would do what you want, but also let you access the arguments however you like. For example:

  f() { some_cmd "$1"; another_cmd "$2"; }; f

would let you consider the arguments independently.

But for your purposes, using "#" to ignore them is simpler to write.

-Peff