git hooks : is there a clone hook?

Question

We want to store some meta-information about the commit in an external database. During a clone or a checkout, this database should be referred and we copy the meta information to a file in the repo which is cloned. The database is required rather than just using a file is for the sake of indexing and searches etc ...

I thought if there is a clone hook, we could trigger this. I couldn't find the clone hooks in the sample in .git/hooks. is there one? is post-checkout hook the only possibility at client side?

score 32 · Accepted Answer · edited May 11 '12 at 08:23

32

ok, one way to do this is to use the clone --template option.

Specify the location where the client side hooks will be stored as value to the --template switch. The hooks are copied to the clone, and the post-checkout hook is fired immediately!

edited May 11 '12 at 08:23

CharlesB

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answered May 11 '12 at 06:49

maxmelbin

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But the template directory cannot be inside the repository you are cloning - it must already exist on the filesystem before you clone. – chrishiestand Mar 28 '13 at 19:45
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http://stackoverflow.com/a/2141577/1183537 helped me a lot, more clarification, and addresses what you said @chrishiestand – mswieboda Jan 23 '14 at 18:11

score 13 · Answer 2 · edited Sep 25 '20 at 12:58

When you clone a remote repository, you can't run any client-side hooks because hooks are local to your working copy, and you're creating one from scratch. When you pull new changes from a remote repository, git will run your local post-merge hook if it exists.

There is nothing run on the server as the result of a pull operation. A push operation will trigger the servers's update and post-update hooks.

See the Git Book for more information.

score 10 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 19 '12 at 13:35

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No, there isn't any clone hook.

answered Apr 19 '12 at 13:35

rtn

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score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 07 '20 at 01:12

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Since git version 1.6.3, the post-checkout hook runs on git-clone (when run without --no-checkout).

It is also run after git-clone[1], unless the --no-checkout (-n) option is used. The first parameter given to the hook is the null-ref, the second the ref of the new HEAD and the flag is always 1.

https://git-scm.com/docs/githooks#_post_checkout

answered Jan 07 '20 at 01:12

ZachB

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This doesn't tell how to get the hook code added to .git/hooks or alternative for checkout – TamusJRoyce Aug 28 '23 at 22:00

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 04 '19 at 04:22

I'm late but there is a workaround:

Capture git clone execution and set a variable using trap set_var_on_git_clone DEBUG where set_var_on_git_clone is a user-defined function. (e.g. https://gist.github.com/KeyAmam/a6afcabc3a724fc4a541aca7629c3ff6)
Check the variable in post-checkout script and do some stuff in the case. Clear the variable at the end of the script. (e.g. https://gist.github.com/KeyAmam/6a0e8805c0b6a662adb6bcf8118a089a)

This only works in Bash but you can do a similar thing in other shells.

Nice - I can add this to our machine setup Ansible script, and it will be easy enough to get it to detect and source .../.git_clone_hook, so the hook's under source control like .gitignore. — Tim Baverstock, Sep 30 '22 at 09:02

git hooks : is there a clone hook?

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