From: Ben Knoble Date: Wed, 04 Mar 2026 09:49:47 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH v3] add: support pre-add hook Message-ID: <33EBA399-2D24-48C7-AA1B-EBADF5E520D4@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: > Le 3 mars 2026 à 18:06, Junio C Hamano a écrit : > > "Chandra Kethi-Reddy via GitGitGadget" > writes: > >> "git add" has no hook that lets users inspect what is about to be >> staged. Users who want to reject certain paths or content must >> wrap the command in a shell alias or wait for pre-commit, which >> fires too late to prevent staging. > > I do not think the above would convince readers that "preventing to > add" is a worthy goal in the first place. If you "git add foo" by > mistake and wish you had this hook to prevent 'foo' from getting > added ever, you can easily "git reset foo" to undo it. It’s also not clear to me how the proposed hook could inspect “git add A B” and reject A but permit B, but maybe that’s a non-goals. >> diff --git a/Documentation/githooks.adoc b/Documentation/githooks.adoc >> index 056553788d..657e14d306 100644 >> --- a/Documentation/githooks.adoc >> +++ b/Documentation/githooks.adoc >> @@ -94,6 +94,36 @@ and is invoked after the patch is applied and a commit is made. >> This hook is meant primarily for notification, and cannot affect >> the outcome of `git am`. >> >> +pre-add >> +~~~~~~~ >> + >> +This hook is invoked by linkgit:git-add[1], and can be bypassed with the >> +`--no-verify` option. It is not invoked for `--interactive`, `--patch`, >> +`--edit`, or `--dry-run`. >> + >> +It takes two parameters: the path to the index file for this invocation > > Elsewhere you called these two files "arguments" but here you say > "parameters". Let's be consistent. > >> +of `git add`, and the path to the lockfile containing the proposed >> +index after staging. It does not read from standard input. If no index >> +exists yet, the first parameter names a path that does not exist and >> +should be treated as an empty index. Saying “it [the hook] does not read from standard in” feels proscriptive rather than descriptive. Why couldn’t I write a short script that asked for confirmation of the paths being added via stdin? Or perhaps we mean that Git does not write anything to the hook’s stdin… at which point I wonder if Junio’s “let’s not mention that we don’t do this unusual thing” applies? I haven’t looked at how the rest of our documentation describes hooks that aren’t fed input via stdin.