Git Hooks Security — Why Hooks Don’t Clone and How to Distribute Them Safely

In the previous videos we explored Git hooks like pre-commit and prepare-commit-msg.
This post tackles two practical questions:

Security: What if a malicious repo’s hook tries to run harmful code on your machine?
Distribution: If hooks are local-only, how do we share the team’s standard hooks with every developer?

Short answer:

Hooks never travel with your commits — they live in .git/hooks/ and are not versioned. This is a security guard-rail.
To share hooks safely, store them as plain files in your repo (e.g., hooks/) and provide a one-step installer (e.g., make).

Why hooks don’t clone (and why that’s good)

When you git clone, Git does not copy any executable hook into your local .git/hooks/.
This prevents auto-executing untrusted code the moment you make your first commit.

You saw this live:

After cloning a repo, .git/hooks/ contains only *.sample files (or nothing executable).
Your custom pre-commit / prepare-commit-msg from another machine were not present.

The problem: we still want team-wide hooks

You do want the team to run formatters, linters, tests, and message rules locally before code ever leaves laptops.

But since hooks aren’t versioned automatically, you need a simple, explicit install step.

Ship hooks in the repo + give a one-step installer

1) Commit your hook scripts as plain files

hooks/
  pre-commit
  prepare-commit-msg

Add and push them like any source file.

2) Provide a Makefile target that installs them into .git/hooks/

In the video, we used a target called install hooks and ran make install hooks. Below is the same spirit packaged as a single target name (commonly used in practice):

# Makefile
install-hooks:
	@mkdir -p .git/hooks
	cp -a hooks/* .git/hooks/
	chmod +x .git/hooks/*
	@echo "✓ Hooks installed to .git/hooks"

3) Developer flow after clone

git clone <REPO_URL>
cd <REPO_DIR>
make install-hooks       # installs and chmod +x

Now their local .git/hooks/ contains your team’s hook scripts, ready to run.

What you demonstrated in the video (step-by-step recap)

Created a repo; proved hooks aren’t part of version control by cloning it elsewhere and checking .git/hooks/.

Moved local hook scripts into a tracked hooks/ folder:

mkdir hooks
cp .git/hooks/pre-commit hooks/
cp .git/hooks/prepare-commit-msg hooks/
git add hooks
git commit -m "hooks added"
git push origin main

Added a Makefile with an install target that copies from hooks/ to .git/hooks/.
Cloned fresh, ran:
```
make install hooks   # as narrated in the video
```
and verified the hooks now exist under .git/hooks/ and are executable.

🔐 Note on permissions: If the committed files don’t have execute bit in the repo, ensure your installer runs chmod +x .git/hooks/*.

Security checklist for client-side hooks

Trust the repo before you install its hooks. Review the hooks/ folder like any other code.
Explicit install: nothing runs until the developer chooses to install.
Print clear errors when blocking a commit; never silently pass/fail.
Keep hooks fast; slow hooks make teams disable them.

Alternatives you mentioned

If you prefer dedicated hook managers, you can evaluate:

Husky (popular in JS/TS projects)
Lefthook (language-agnostic, fast)

These tools are outside the core Git series here, but the idea is the same: manage hooks as code, install them explicitly.

Summary

Hooks are local-only by design — they don’t clone (security).
Put scripts in hooks/ (tracked), then install into .git/hooks/ via a one-step command (e.g., make install-hooks).
Ensure executable permissions are set.
Consider managers like Husky or Lefthook if your stack prefers them.

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