Why is my Git pre-commit hook not executable by default?

Git Problem Overview

If you see the accepted answer in: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8598246/aggregating-and-uglifying-javascript-in-a-git-pre-commit-hook, you'll see that I had to do a chmod +x on my pre-commit hook to get it to work.

Why is this not executable by Git by default?

Git Solutions

Solution 1 - Git

My context - web development Node.js. I needed to add husky functionality, but got an error, probably to the disk access. This helped in my situation:

chmod ug+x .husky/*
chmod ug+x .git/hooks/*

Solution 2 - Git

Because files are not executable by default; they must be set to be executable.

The sample files from a git init are all executable; if it's copied or renamed to a non-sample file, it will retain the original file's x flag.

New files will be created with current defaults. In your case, view those defaults with umask:

$ umask
0022

By default, new files won't be u+x unless explicitly set to be.

Solution 3 - Git

> I had to do a chmod +x on my pre-commit hook to get it to work

The problem is to realize that it was not executable in the first place.
That will be easier with Git 2.15.x/2.16 (Q1 2018)

See commit f805a00 (06 Oct 2017) by Damien Marié (mdamien).
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 130b512, 06 Nov 2017)}

> ## run-command: add hint when a hook is ignored

> When an hook is present but the file is not set as executable then git will ignore the hook.
For now this is silent which can be confusing.

> This commit adds this warning to improve the situation:

hint: The 'pre-commit' hook was ignored because it's not set as executable.
hint: You can disable this warning with `git config advice.ignoredHook false`

> To allow the old use-case of enabling/disabling hooks via the executable flag a new setting is introduced: advice.ignoredHook.

Solution 4 - Git

Just as a reference, after making the file executable, if that appears in git file changes because of file mode changes, the following would work: (tried in Ubuntu/Linux)

chmod ug+x .husky/pre-commit # make file executable
git config core.filemode false # to ignore file mode changes

Reference: How do I remove files saying "old mode 100755 new mode 100644" from unstaged changes in Git?

Solution 5 - Git

I had the same symptoms, but a totally different cause:

In addition to setting the right permission bits via chmod +x .git/hooks/pre-commit, please make sure your file system is mounted in a way that allows those changes. This can, e.g., be an issue when you have a dual-boot system where you are working on an ntfs-3g mounted Windows drive under Linux.

You can fix it by changing the default permissions in /etc/fstab or the systemd equivalent.

Solution 6 - Git

Just as an add-on answer, here is the function, you can use for initializing a Git repository, which automatically makes hooks executables; you should put it in .bashrc or a file you source when you start your terminal. The story is below :)

ginit () {
    git init
    gitpath=`git rev-parse --show-superproject-working-tree --show-toplevel | head -1`
    chmod u+x "$gitpath"/.git/hooks/*
    for submodule in "$gitpath"/.git/modules/*; do
        chmod u+x "$submodule"/hooks/*
    done
}

I was annoyed by the same thing as you. I do not want to remember that I have to make all hooks executables every time I initialize a repository. Plus, when you use submodules, their hooks are not in .git/hooks, but in .git/modules/NameOfSubmodule/hooks, and these should be made executables too.

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	Josh Smith	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Git	Roman	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Git	Dave Newton	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Git	VonC	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Git	Dhaval L.	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Git	ato	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Git	Jakub Wagner	View Answer on Stackoverflow