Setting up gitlint pre-commit local for a repository

Question

I am trying to add a gitlint pre-commit hook in a repository. The .pre-commit-config.yaml file looks lke this:

# See https://pre-commit.com for more information
# See https://pre-commit.com/hooks.html for more hooks
repos:
  - repo: local
    hooks:
      - id: gitlint
        name: gitlint
        entry: gitlint
        language: system

However, I keep getting:

- hook id: gitlint
- exit code: 253

Usage: gitlint [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...
Try 'gitlint --help' for help.

Error: No such command '.pre-commit-config.yaml'.

This is after I run:

pip install gitlint
pre-commit install --hook-type commit-msg

What am I doing wrong?

installed on a MacOS. With pip install gitlint. I actually figured it out. I had to add `types: [python]` in the .pre-commit.yaml. Now I have a different problem. I will update the question — Christos Hadjinikolis, Feb 28 '21 at 10:55

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 28 '21 at 16:31

Your configuration is broken because of a few reasons:

you've configured gitlint for all stages, meaning it will run on other git hooks you don't want (such as pre-commit, pre-push, etc.). to fix this you'll set stages: [commit-msg]
you're missing a few other settings as well such as the proper arguments to gitlint etc.
additionally you're using language: system which means you're depending on your contributors to set up tooling -- this misses the point of pre-commit and is the unsupported escape hatch. the usual way to have managed tools is to reuse an existing repository (see below) or to use additional_dependencies to install the tool in a managed way

The supported way to use gitlint is from the repository itself

repos:
-   repo: https://github.com/jorisroovers/gitlint
    rev: ''  # pick a tag / sha to use
    hooks:
    -   id: gitlint

disclaimer: I'm the creator of pre-commit and contributed the pre-commit support to gitlint

Thanks. That was very helpful. I still want to set it up locally and so I did. Your comments helped me to it. — Christos Hadjinikolis, Feb 28 '21 at 18:49
i am sorry i still dont get it even after reading the documentation on pre-commit.com what is the difference between language python and language system. Docs say "This hook type will not be given a virtual environment to work with " what happens if you set language python? does it automatically pick poetry from the pyproject.toml file to find out dependencies? — PirateApp, Jul 05 '22 at 11:25
@PirateApp did you read [this](https://pre-commit.com/#python) ? — anthony sottile, Jul 05 '22 at 13:08

Christos Hadjinikolis · Answer 2 · 2021-02-28T18:56:32.840

0

The error message is not very helpful. I was just missing args and stages fields:

# See https://pre-commit.com for more information
# See https://pre-commit.com/hooks.html for more hooks
---
repos:
   - repo: local
     hooks:
       - id: gitlint
         name: gitlint
         language: python
         entry: gitlint
         args: [--staged, --msg-filename]
         stages: [commit-msg]

edited Feb 28 '21 at 18:56

answered Feb 28 '21 at 11:04

Christos Hadjinikolis

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Setting up gitlint pre-commit local for a repository

2 Answers2