Subject: Re: git hook question

From: Jeff King <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 May 2026 01:21:41 -0400

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

> 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