Better Bots via Hooks

Developers can enforce coding conventions and prevent unwanted commits by using git pre-commit hooks, which run automated checks before allowing a commit. This approach reduces the need to embed strict rules in agent instructions and helps bots follow guidelines, though agents may bypass hooks with --no-verify.

It can be tedious trying to get your bot to do exactly what you want to do, but it’s not always necessary. If there are hard conventions that you need to enforce like tidying, not committing certain kinds of changes , try enforcing these at the git pre-commit hook level. The advantage of this is that you don’t need to go through contortions to put certain kinds of requirements in AGENT.md files, skill instructions etc. If you let your agent commit your code, the pre-commit hook can prevent them from committing until they play by the rules. " Captain Hook Topiary at Epcot Flower & Garden Festival 2014 https://www.flickr.com/photos/64441474@N06/13642118603 " by Austin Kirk https://www.flickr.com/photos/aukirk/ is licensed under CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/?ref=openverse . Caveat Emptor caveat-emptor It’s always possible that your agent decides to commit with --no-verify or even deletes your hooks, so consider this part of a belt and suspenders approach to getting the results you want. Show Me the Hooks show-me-the-hooks Here’s an example of a pre-commit hook that I’m using for https://mymindisracing.com https://mymindisracing.com . It - prevents commits to main - prevents updates to a scaffolding file that I keep under version control but don’t want changed - enforces tidying and linting: bash /bin/sh Pre-commit hook to run precious lint on staged files Check if we're on main branch branch=$ git symbolic-ref --short HEAD 2 /dev/null if "$branch" = "main" ; then echo "ERROR: Direct commits to 'main' branch are not allowed." echo "Please create a feature branch instead:" echo " git checkout -b feature/your-feature-name" exit 1 fi Block commits that include .serena/project.yml tool artifact, never commit if git diff --cached --name-only | grep -q '^\.serena/project\.yml$'; then echo "ERROR: .serena/project.yml is staged for commit." echo "This file is a local tool artifact and should not be committed." echo " git reset HEAD .serena/project.yml" exit 1 fi Run precious lint on staged files precious lint -q --staged Capture the exit code RESULT=$? If precious lint failed, prevent the commit if $RESULT -ne 0 ; then echo "pre-commit hook failed: precious lint found issues with staged files" echo "Please run 'precious tidy -q --staged' and try again" exit 1 fi exit 0 Agents can do a lot of things really well, but they do tend to perform better when given guardrails. Adding this kind of basic safeguard can save a lot of tedium in your day to day work.