Cowardly refusing to install hooks with `core.hooksPath` set

Question

i tried to run this command but it always show this error, i can't fix it with anyway. Help me, please!

(venv)<...>pre-commit install

[ERROR] Cowardly refusing to install hooks with core.hooksPath set.

hint: git config --unset-all core.hooksPath

Answer 1

1. Run:

   git config --unset-all core.hooksPath
   

2. If the global core.hooksPath is not empty, run:

   git config --global --unset-all core.hooksPath
   

   But of course, it's global so be careful.

   Why pre-commit is nonfunctional with global hooks? see issue

Answer 2

You are getting the above error because of setting up a global hook path.

It can be resolved in below two ways: -

1. Unset the global hook path as below: -

   git config --unset core.hooksPath
   

2. Set local hooks path as below: -

   git config --local core.hooksPath .git/hooks
   

There is a very interesting conversation on this topic, I will highly recommend going through it once:-

issue Cowardly refusing to install hooks with core.hooksPath set

Please let me know in the comments if this resolves your problem. I am super curious about it.

Answer 3

I also hit this problem, and I'm definitely not convinced by the author's answer in #1198. Requiring to edit a personal file/setting to be able to use a software does not seems acceptable to be me.

Anyway, the workaround I found is to prevent pre-commit to use global config during install phase, where you probably have setup your core.hookspath. As there is no option, we can trick git by telling it to use /dev/null as global config dir, only during install time:

$ XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/dev/null pre-commit install
pre-commit installed at .git/hooks/pre-commit

I'm not sure to fully understand the implication of doing so, but I'm aware that my global git hooks won't run anymore when pre-commit is enabled on a project :)