Lefthook — Fast Git Hooks Manager in Go

What it is

Lefthook is a fast Git hooks manager written in Go. It runs linters, formatters, and tests on git commit and push events in parallel. It ships as a single binary with zero runtime dependencies, replacing the combination of Husky plus lint-staged in JavaScript projects or pre-commit in Python projects.

Lefthook targets any development team that wants pre-commit quality checks without the overhead of Node.js or Python runtimes. It works with any language and any toolchain because it simply executes shell commands you configure.

Why it saves time or tokens

Lefthook runs checks in parallel by default, which makes pre-commit hooks significantly faster than sequential alternatives. It only runs checks on changed files (glob and staged-file filtering), so large repositories do not suffer from full-codebase scans on every commit. The YAML config is simpler than Husky's package.json scripts, producing fewer AI generation errors.

How to use

1. Install Lefthook: go install github.com/evilmartians/lefthook@latest or download the binary
2. Run lefthook install in your repo to set up Git hooks
3. Create a lefthook.yml config file defining your hooks

Example

pre-commit:
  parallel: true
  commands:
    lint:
      glob: '*.{js,ts}'
      run: npx eslint {staged_files}
    format:
      glob: '*.{js,ts,css}'
      run: npx prettier --check {staged_files}
    test:
      run: npm test -- --bail

pre-push:
  commands:
    typecheck:
      run: npx tsc --noEmit

Related on TokRepo

• AI tools for coding — developer productivity tools on TokRepo
• Automation tools — CI, hooks, and automation helpers

Common pitfalls

• Lefthook must be installed by every developer on the team; add lefthook install to your onboarding docs or a setup script
• The {staged_files} placeholder only works in pre-commit hooks; pre-push hooks do not have a staged files concept
• Parallel execution means command output can interleave; use --no-tty in CI to get cleaner logs