Local executing hook after a git push? (post-push)

Another solution to this problem is to have a wrapper for git push that executes .git/hooks/pre-push and .git/hooks/post-push scripts before and after the git push call. A possible wrapper could look like this:

#!/bin/sh

GIT_DIR_="$(git rev-parse --git-dir)"
BRANCH="$(git rev-parse --symbolic --abbrev-ref $(git symbolic-ref HEAD))"

PRE_PUSH="$GIT_DIR_/hooks/pre-push"
POST_PUSH="$GIT_DIR_/hooks/post-push"

test -x "$PRE_PUSH" &&
    exec "$PRE_PUSH" "$BRANCH" "$@"

git push "$@"

test $? -eq 0 && test -x "$POST_PUSH" &&
    exec "$POST_PUSH" "$BRANCH" "$@"

Saved as git-push-wh somewhere in your PATH, it can then be called as git push-wh if you want to push with hooks.

I recently came across the same issue. I wanted a hook so that a push from my git submodule would commit the new submodule reference in the 'superproject'.

As Chris mentioned, the best way is to just use a git alias, like this:

$ git config alias.xpush '!git push $1 $2 && update-server.sh'
# (remember the backslash before the ! if your shell requires it)

This adds the following to your .git/config file:

[alias]
  xpush = !git push $1 $2 && update-server.sh

And so now, if you type:

$ git xpush

your changes will be pushed, and then update-server.sh will be executed.

This type of hook is not supported by Git. It falls outside the valid reasons for a Git hook as given by Git's maintainer.

The introductory remark in the above linked message speaks almost directly to your case:

I do not particularly like hooks that act after an operation is initiated locally and act solely on local data. This is maybe because I still consider git tools building blocks suitable for higher level scripting more than other people do.

P.S. A “Single Push” Hint

• There are too many caveats for a full explanation, but if you can figure it all out you should be able to deal with the details.

An extra pushurl to a local repo with an “alternates” objects store could give you a low overhead way to locally execute a push hook. But really, the effort is much more than git push upstream && update-web-server (maybe in a shell alias, git alias, or script).

Implementing a post-push hook is in fact possible by using the reference-transaction hook. After a push is done, git will locally update the remote tracking branch, triggering a reference transaction on refs/remotes/REMOTE/BRANCH.

Here's an example for a hook that uses this technique:

#!/bin/bash
set -eu

while read oldvalue newvalue refname
do
    if [ $1 = committed -a $refname = refs/remotes/origin/main ]
    then
        exec .git/hooks/post-push
    fi
done

This script must have the executable bit and be placed in .git/hooks/reference-transaction. The hook runs after pushing the main branch to origin. Put your actual hook script in .git/hooks/post-push.

I'm using a function for this:

current_branch() {
    local ref=$(git symbolic-ref HEAD 2> /dev/null) || return
    echo ${ref#refs/heads/}
}

gp() {
    local post_push="$(git rev-parse --git-dir)/hooks/post-push"
    git push "$@" && {
        [[ -x "$post_push" ]] && "$post_push" "$(current_branch)" "$@"
    }
}
compdef _git gp=git-push

The compdef part is for ZSH.

incron to the rescue.

my incrontab has this:

/path/to/.git/logs/refs/remotes/origin IN_CLOSE_WRITE /usr/local/bin/git-post-push $@/$#

The script checks whether the remote changed by a push and if yes extracts a few helpful things with GNU grep:

# The script is called with a filename like /path/to/.git/logs/refs/remotes/origin/main
# Each lines of the file is, as per https://git-scm.com/docs/git-update-ref#_logging_updates:
# oldsha1 SP newsha1 SP committer TAB message LF
# "committer" is the committer’s name, email address, the Unix timestamp and 
# the timezone, all separated by spaces.
# git push uses the literal text "update by push" without quotes as message.
push=$(tail -1 "$1"| grep -oP '\d{10}(?=\s.{1,5}\supdate by push$)')
if [ -n "$push" ]; then
  gitdir=$(echo "$1"|grep -oP '^.*/.git/')
  remote=$(echo "$1"|grep -oP '.git/logs/refs/remotes/\K[^/]+')
  branch=$(echo "$1"|grep -oP '.git/logs/refs/remotes/[^/]+/\K.*$')
  # your code here
  # git --git-dir="$gitdir"....
fi

The push variable contains the timestamp of the push, the rest is self explanatory.

Just create a pre-push hook with a sleep at the top. Ensure sleep is long enough for the commits to be uploaded to upstream server based on your network connection speed. Ideally add a & to run your script in the background:

(sleep 30 && .git/hooks/post-push) &