Git pre-commit hook is not running on Windows

Question

I'm just starting to look into Git hooks, but I can't seem to get them to run.

I set up a local repository, so there is now a '.git' directory in my project folder. I have added a '.cmd' file into the C:/path/to/my/project/.git/hooks directory named 'pre-commit.cmd'. Here is the contents of this file:

echo "HOOK RUNNING"
echo. 2>C:/path/to/my/project/.git/hooks/EmptyFile.txt

This should echo the text "HOOK RUNNING" and create an empty text file in that directory. However, if I commit changes through my IDE (NetBeans) or use Git Bash to commit, neither of them seem to run my pre-commit hook, as no file is created.

My understanding is that all you have to do to get a hook to run is add an executable with the name of the hook (as I have done). Am I doing something wrong?

Note: This is on a Windows 7 PC.

Related (the subject of some of the answers): *[Why is my Git pre-commit hook not executable by default?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8598639/)* — Peter Mortensen, Nov 24 '21 at 18:35

score 69 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 24 '21 at 17:29

69

Name your hook pre-commit (without any file extension).

And add #!/bin/sh on the first line or #!/bin/bash.

edited Nov 24 '21 at 17:29

Peter Mortensen

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answered Dec 16 '13 at 11:41

Asenar

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2

Thanks for the suggestion. Just tried that and now it comes up with an error when I try to commit: "error: cannot spawn .git/hooks/pre-commit: no such file or directory". – user1578653 Dec 16 '13 at 11:44
1

edited to add a 2nd suggestion (found in http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5697210/msysgit-error-with-hooks-git-error-cannot-spawn-git-hooks-post-commit-no-su ). if this is not that, I cannot help more, I'm not really familiar with windows shell problem – Asenar Dec 16 '13 at 11:52
That was it! You're second suggestion has made it work. Not sure why it can't just be a normal windows '.bat' or '.cmd' file... – user1578653 Dec 16 '13 at 11:53
the answer to that question is probably in git documentation – Asenar Dec 16 '13 at 11:54
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Try `chmod +x pre-commit` – vaughan Jan 23 '14 at 02:36
7

I had to use `#!/bin/bash` instead of `#!/bin/sh` to get this running under Windows. – Kaushalya Dec 17 '15 at 09:25
which windows version ? – Asenar Dec 17 '15 at 13:57
@vaughan: Thanks for the `chmod` idea. It totally failed to cross my mind. :) – J. Allan Dec 06 '16 at 00:36
@Asenar yeah, but this is the first result when searching "git pre-commit hook not running", regardless of platform – Zoey Mertes Jan 24 '17 at 02:07
@vaughan you made my day! – Jérémy Pouyet Jun 21 '17 at 09:11

edi9999 · Answer 2 · 2016-08-18T17:54:22.937

38

You probably don't have the permissions to run the pre-commit file

Run in your terminal:

chmod +x .git/hooks/pre-commit

Thanks to @vaughan for giving the idea

edited Aug 18 '16 at 17:54

answered Aug 07 '15 at 07:47

edi9999

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also a valid reason for why a hook would not run :D, true in my case, thx – Dane Macaulay Nov 13 '15 at 02:27
This was driving me crazy and fixed my issue. Thanks! – skeller88 Nov 18 '15 at 00:35
@DaneMacaulay Can you please tell me where to write this ? – user2125722 Aug 18 '16 at 16:26
Indeed, it wasn't clear in my answer, you need to run it in your terminal, I edited my answer – edi9999 Aug 18 '16 at 17:55
tried with the *chmod +x pre-commit* but it gives *chmod: cannot access '.git/hooks/pre-commit': No such file or directory*. – Sachin Gaikwad Jan 13 '17 at 10:56
1

You need to go to the directory where your project is before running that command – edi9999 Jan 13 '17 at 13:17
After running the given command, and `ls -ls` afterwards I see this as rights on the pre-commit file: `-rw-r--r--` Doesn't seem to have execution rights yet. In a test repo I just created, the files do have `-rwxr-xr-x` rights... Odd... – Mike de Klerk Nov 02 '17 at 07:21
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chmod +x? On Windows? The question was "not running on WINDOWS". – mvmn Oct 31 '22 at 08:36

score 22 · Answer 3 · edited Nov 24 '21 at 17:35

TL;DR

Git hooks work on Git for Windows by default assuming the Git hook script is simple.

Background of Git and Windows

Please Note: Git was made for shell interpretation; thus, using Git hooks on a Windows command prompt or Windows-made PowerShell will inherently have its flaws, and complete interoperability is not to be expected.

Using Git hooks on Windows is possible, but it has many drawbacks.

Git for Windows uses a shell emulator that makes Bash and shell commands possible. This means that when a Git hook is activated by Git, the Windows version will run the command using the shell emulator. Which in turn, will convert those shell commands to commands that the Windows operating system can understand. Meaning, simple shell scripts will work right off the bat. For example, the Git hook pre-commit that ships with an initialization of a Git repository can be run without any modification.

Example of default behavior

Initialize a Git repository with the command git init
Navigate to the Git hooks directory with the command cd .git\hooks
This directory holds all the Git hook scripts. Create a file named pre-commit. Note:

The name of the file is important
Replace the contents with the following shell script
```
#!/bin/sh

echo "Hello, World!"
```
Navigate back to your root directory of the project and create a file named test.txt using the command echo "something" > text.txt
Stage the file to commit using the command git add test.txt
Commit the change and watch the pre-commit hook activate using the command git commit -m "test commit"

Verify the output to look like the following

git commit -m "test commit"
Hello, World!
[master f00ccea] test commit

Example of bad behavior

When using a very advanced shell script to do things in Git hooks, Windows shell interpretation doesn't always stack up. For example, when using the Husky Git hook plugin for NPM, along with the Prettier formatter, the commands do not map 1-1. Meaning that your pre-commit Git hook will fail on Windows.

Answering user1578653's question

A Git hook is an executable script; however, you are using a command prompt script (.cmd) and not a shell script (.sh). If you would like this behavior you described on a Windows operating system then create the file named pre-commit and place it in the .git\hooks directory (relative to the project you are working on). Then place the following content in that file.

.git\hooks\pre-commit

#!/bin/sh

echo "HOOK RUNNING"
thisCausesError 2> .git/hooks/EmptyFile.txt

You will notice that the Git hook works and outputs the words HOOK RUNNING to the console, and the thisCauseError will print an error message to standard error that will be printed to the file EmptyFile.txt.

Indeed, even in a `git bash`, many commands in `pre-commit.sample`, created by default, do not work on my Windows installation. So I had to simplify it alot. — Joël, Mar 02 '22 at 09:08

score 17 · Answer 4 · edited Jan 17 '22 at 10:11

17

In my case, I had set core.hooksPath to the wrong directory.

Resetting it with git config --global core.hooksPath '~/.githooks' solved the issue :)

You can verify your hooks path using git config --get core.hooksPath

edited Jan 17 '22 at 10:11

Synthesis

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answered Jul 02 '19 at 07:04

mtraton

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I had enabled hooks for Cygwin by placing them into a subdirectory `./hooks` and making them visible to git with `cd .git; ln -sf ../hooks hooks`. As a consequence, git hooks were executed in Cygwin's git but not from within Emacs `M-x shell-command` or other places using `cmdproxy` or `cmd`, including `git gui`. After finding this answer, using `git config core.hookspath hooks` fixed it by being independent of whether git was invoked from within cmd or Cygwin's bash. – kdb Oct 13 '19 at 21:28
Thank you so much.. I had `error: cannot spawn .git/hooks/pre-commit: no such file or directory` This solution worked for me.. – Shokouh Dareshiri Sep 29 '21 at 10:12
helped to me, in windows! – mishaikon Mar 25 '22 at 14:50
something to not here is newer versions of husky hijack the hooksPath and point it to .husky folder. So if you're using husky run this command, verify your hookPath dir, and copy your client side hooks to the husky dir if husky kidnapped your hookPath var. – cobolstinks Mar 25 '22 at 17:59
solved thanks error is gone! – WorldOfEmre May 17 '22 at 08:28

score 2 · Answer 5 · edited Nov 24 '21 at 16:11

2

For me, none of the previous solutions worked. I moved the pre-commit file from hooks to some other location, effectively deleting the file from hooks.

That worked for me :D

edited Nov 24 '21 at 16:11

Peter Mortensen

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answered Aug 16 '18 at 06:38

Nilotpal

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yes deleting the pre-commit file in the hooks directory works – agenis Apr 05 '19 at 10:52
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This just means that you took the git hook out, and didn't fix the hook. – Jul 12 '19 at 23:59

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Aug 12 '20 at 05:31

2

For me, I tried to run a .bat file.

I discovered that backslashes need to be escaped:

For example:

#!/bin/bash
C:\\somefolder\\somefile.bat

answered Aug 12 '20 at 05:31

Shadi Alnamrouti

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score 1 · Answer 7 · edited Nov 24 '21 at 16:10

1

In my case, where I did npm install and accidentally deleted the .git folder, npm install pre-commit --save worked.

edited Nov 24 '21 at 16:10

Peter Mortensen

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answered Apr 09 '18 at 07:55

Theo

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score 1 · Answer 8 · edited Nov 24 '21 at 17:22

I tried solutions suggested in other answers and it didn't help to fix this problem:

cannot spawn .git/hooks/pre-commit: No such file or directory

The solution, which worked for me, was to rename the file .git/pre-commit.sample to .git/pre-commit and insert the script for formatting changed files with Prettier. The file with the name 'pre-commit' which I have created manually must have had some problems (encoding or end-line symbols remains unclear).

score 0 · Answer 9 · edited Nov 24 '21 at 16:27

0

If it helps anyone:

I was getting the following error:

error: cannot spawn .git/hooks/pre-commit: No error

It turned out that in my pre-commit file I did not have 'newline' character after last exit command:

#!/bin/sh
# From gist at https://gist.github.com/chadmaughan/5889802

# Stash any unstaged changes
git stash -q --keep-index

# Run the tests with the Gradle wrapper
./gradlew test --daemon

# Store the last exit code in a variable
RESULT=$?

# Unstash the unstashed changes
git stash pop -q

# Return the './gradlew test' exit code
exit $RESULT
# << must have a newline after the above command >>

I was running a Gradle project on Windows and Gradle commands in the Cmder shell and cmd.

edited Nov 24 '21 at 16:27

Peter Mortensen

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answered Feb 19 '20 at 19:50

Yogesh

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Very unfortunately, many systems silently (and automatically) removes a 'newline' character at the very end of files, even if it is not an empty line (example: the [Arduino](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino) IDE). At the same time, many compilers can not handle a missing newline at the very end of a file. A workaround is to put some sort of comment at the very end of the file. – Peter Mortensen Nov 24 '21 at 16:29

Git pre-commit hook is not running on Windows

9 Answers9

TL;DR

Background of Git and Windows

Example of default behavior

Example of bad behavior

Answering user1578653's question

Linked