---
id: lefthook
version: "2.1.10"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# lefthook — Git hooks manager. Fast, powerful, simple.

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 399.8K/mo

## What it is and what it does

Lefthook is a Git hooks manager written in Go that runs as a single binary, installed via pip as a platform-specific wheel. It lets you define custom commands to run before or after Git operations (commit, push, etc.) in a YAML configuration file, then installs those hooks into your repository's `.git/hooks` directory. The manager supports parallel execution of commands and works across polyglot projects—Node.js, Ruby, and others—without requiring language-specific hook frameworks.

You configure hooks once in `lefthook.yml`, run `lefthook install`, and the hooks execute automatically on each Git operation. The package has no Python runtime dependencies; it's a thin wrapper around the Go binary, which handles all the hook management and execution logic. This makes it lightweight and portable across teams and CI environments.

Use it for:

- Run linters and formatters automatically before commit to enforce code style across a team.
- Execute tests before push to prevent broken code from reaching the repository.
- Validate commit messages against a standard format before allowing commits.
- Run security checks or dependency audits as part of the pre-commit workflow.
- Coordinate multiple checks (lint, test, type-check) in parallel to speed up the commit process.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Lefthook is a Git hooks manager that installs and runs custom commands automatically before or after Git operations, supporting parallel execution across Node.js, Ruby, and other project types.

Yes, if you need a lightweight, language-agnostic Git hooks manager. Active maintenance, no runtime dependencies, permissive MIT license, and no known vulnerabilities make it low-risk. Medium install friction from platform-specific wheels is a minor trade-off for a single self-contained binary. Best suited for teams wanting to standardize pre-commit checks across polyglot codebases without heavyweight frameworks.

## Install

pip install lefthook
uv add lefthook
poetry add lefthook

## Installing lefthook

Before you install: Medium install friction due to platform-specific binary wheels (macOS x86_64/arm64, Linux x86_64/aarch64, Windows amd64/arm64), but the package itself has no runtime dependencies and maintenance is active with a recent release.

License in practice: MIT license is permissive, allowing use in commercial and private projects with minimal restrictions—you need only retain the license notice.

Quickstart:

pip install lefthook

# Create lefthook.yml in your repo with hook configuration
lefthook install

# Hooks now run automatically on git operations

Requires Python 3.6 or later; the binary is platform-specific so installation must match your OS and architecture.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the package can run hooks for languages other than Node.js and Ruby without additional setup.
- Performance characteristics and actual parallelization behavior compared to other Git hook managers.
- Whether configuration can be shared across team members without environment-specific tweaks.

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: medium
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 399.8K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

git hooks manager, pre-commit hook automation, git workflow automation, parallel git hooks, git commit hooks, polyglot git hooks, git hook configuration, git-automation, pre-commit, polyglot

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