pre-commit: install with uv

A bird with a pre-commit-hook-shaped beak.

pre-commit is my favourite Git-integrated “run things on commit” tool. It acts as a kind of package manager, installing tools as necessary from their Git repositories. This makes it fairly easy to set up: all you need to install is pre-commit itself, and it takes things from there.

That said, pre-commit’s install guide is not the friendliest, particularly to developers who don’t use Python. The guide only covers installation with Python’s default installer tool, Pip, and the rather unconventional zipapp alternative. Both of these methods are a bit annoying as they require a working Python installation and virtual environment, entailing manual upgrades of those tools too.

Enter uv (pronounced “you-vee”), a new Python environment manager. Since its release last year, it has made the Pythonsphere go wild, seeing massive adoption. That’s because it simplifies a lot of workflows, including managing development tools like pre-commit. Once you have uv, it can manage Python versions and virtual environments for you, swiftly and smoothly.

I now recommend you install pre-commit using uv’s tool mechanism, using this command:

$ uv tool install pre-commit --with pre-commit-uv

Running it, you’ll see output describing the installation process:

$ uv tool install pre-commit --with pre-commit-uv
Resolved 11 packages in 1ms
Installed 11 packages in 8ms
...
Installed 1 executable: pre-commit

This will put the pre-commit executable in ~/.local/bin or similar (per the documentation). You should then be able to run it from anywhere:

$ pre-commit --version
pre-commit 4.2.0 (pre-commit-uv=4.1.4, uv=0.7.2)

The install command also adds pre-commit-uv, a plugin that patches pre-commit to use uv to install Python-based tools. This drastically speeds up using Python-based hooks, a common use case. (Unfortunately, it seems pre-commit itself won’t be adding uv support.)

With pre-commit installed globally, you can now install its Git hook in relevant repositories per usual:

$ cd myrepo

$ pre-commit install
pre-commit installed at .git/hooks/pre-commit

$ pre-commit run --all-files
[INFO] Installing environment for https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks.
[INFO] Once installed this environment will be reused.
[INFO] This may take a few minutes...
[INFO] Using pre-commit with uv 0.7.2 via pre-commit-uv 4.1.4
check for added large files..............................................Passed
check for merge conflicts................................................Passed
trim trailing whitespace.................................................Passed

Upgrade pre-commit

To upgrade pre-commit installed this way, run:

$ uv tool upgrade pre-commit

For example:

$ uv tool upgrade pre-commit
Updated pre-commit v4.1.0 -> v4.2.0
 - pre-commit==4.1.0
 + pre-commit==4.2.0
Installed 1 executable: pre-commit

This command upgrades pre-commit and all of its dependencies, in its managed environment. For more information, see the uv tool upgrade documentation.

Fin

May you commit early and often,

—Adam

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