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pre-commit

pre-commit is a multi-language framework for managing and running code-quality checks as Git hooks, so you can catch problems before changes are committed or pushed. You declare hooks in a .pre-commit-config.yaml file, and pre-commit runs them consistently for everyone on the team.

Installation and Setup

Install the tool and initialize it in a Git repository:

Language: Windows PowerShell 
PS> py -m pip install pre-commit
PS> pre-commit install
Language: Shell 
$ python -m pip install pre-commit
$ pre-commit install

Create a .pre-commit-config.yaml file at the repository root to declare the hooks that should run.

Key Features

  • Manages Git hook installation for multiple hook types via pre-commit install --hook-type ... and related configuration.
  • Installs each hook in an isolated, language-appropriate environment and reuses installed environments from a cache for faster subsequent runs.
  • Pins hook repositories and revisions in .pre-commit-config.yaml for reproducible results across machines and CI.
  • Runs only the relevant files during Git-hook execution. By default, pre-commit run runs on currently staged files and supports scanning the whole codebase with pre-commit run --all-files.
  • Updates pinned hook revisions with a single command (pre-commit autoupdate).

Usage

Create a .pre-commit-config.yaml for a project:

Language: YAML Filename: .pre-commit-config.yaml 
repos:
  - repo: https://github.com/astral-sh/ruff-pre-commit
    rev: v0.14.9  # Pin a Ruff release
    hooks:
      - id: ruff-check
        args: [--fix]  # Apply safe fixes
      - id: ruff-format

Install the Git hooks for the current repository and run them:

Language: Shell 
$ pre-commit install
$ pre-commit run --all-files
Python Code Quality Illustration

Tutorial

Python Code Quality: Best Practices and Tools

In this tutorial, you'll learn about code quality and the key factors that make Python code high-quality. You'll explore effective strategies, powerful tools, and best practices to elevate your code to the next level.

intermediate best-practices python tools

For additional information on related topics, take a look at the following resources:

By Leodanis Pozo Ramos • Updated May 27, 2026
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