Turn on auto-format, auto-lint, skill-compliance, and skill-extract-reminder — hooks the kit ships disabled by default.

Four of the kit's twelve hooks ship disabled by default because they can be slow or conflict with project configs:

Hook	What it does	Why it's opt-in
`auto-format`	Runs the project formatter after every edit	Slow on large files; can fight with editor formatters
`auto-lint`	Runs the linter after every edit	Slow; many projects already do this in the editor
`skill-compliance`	Checks edited files against active skill checklists	Adds latency proportional to skill count
`skill-extract-reminder`	Reminds Claude to extract discoveries as skills	Can be noisy mid-task

The other eight (protect-files, branch-protect, block-dangerous-commands, conventional-commit, secret-scan, unicode-scan, loop-detect, task-complete-notify) are deterministic and fast, so they're enabled by default.

Verify what's currently active

cat .claude/settings.json | jq '.hooks'

The eight always-on hooks should be listed under PreToolUse and PostToolUse. Any of the four opt-in hooks present means it's already enabled.

Enable an opt-in hook

Add to .claude/settings.json under the appropriate lifecycle. The four opt-in hooks plug into different phases:

`auto-format` and `auto-lint` — PostToolUse

{
  "hooks": {
    "PostToolUse": [
      {
        "matcher": "Edit|Write|NotebookEdit",
        "hooks": [
          { "type": "command", "command": ".claude/hooks/auto-format.sh" },
          { "type": "command", "command": ".claude/hooks/auto-lint.sh" }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

If you already have a PostToolUse block matching Edit|Write|NotebookEdit (the default kit ships one for secret-scan / unicode-scan / loop-detect), append to its hooks array — don't add a second PostToolUse block with the same matcher.

`skill-compliance` — PostToolUse

{ "type": "command", "command": ".claude/hooks/skill-compliance.sh" }

Same lifecycle as auto-format. Runs after edits to verify the file complies with any active skill's checklist.

`skill-extract-reminder` — UserPromptSubmit

{
  "hooks": {
    "UserPromptSubmit": [
      {
        "hooks": [
          {
            "type": "command",
            "command": ".claude/hooks/skill-extract-reminder.sh"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

This one's different — it triggers on user prompts, not tool calls.

Use the `--profile strict` shortcut

If you're installing the kit fresh and want all four enabled:

npx @tansuasici/claude-code-kit init --profile strict

This enables all opt-in hooks at install time. Equivalent to manually editing .claude/settings.json, just faster.

Configure formatter / linter commands

auto-format.sh and auto-lint.sh look at your project to decide what to run:

Detected	auto-format	auto-lint
`package.json` with `format` script	`npm run format`	—
`package.json` with `lint` script	—	`npm run lint`
`prettier` in deps	`npx prettier --write`	—
`eslint` in deps	—	`npx eslint --fix`
`pyproject.toml` with `[tool.ruff]`	`ruff format`	`ruff check --fix`
`Cargo.toml`	`cargo fmt`	`cargo clippy --fix`
`go.mod`	`gofmt -w`	—

If detection fails, the hook exits 0 (no error, no formatting). You can add a project-specific override in .claude/hooks/project/.

Verify

After enabling, edit any source file in a Claude Code session. You should see:

auto-format: file is reformatted on save
auto-lint: lint output appended to Claude's view
skill-compliance: warnings if the edit violates an active skill's rules
skill-extract-reminder: occasional reminders to run /skill-extractor

Disable / revert

Remove the hook entry from .claude/settings.json. No state to clean up — hooks are stateless shell scripts.

When to NOT enable these

Large files (10k+ lines): auto-format and auto-lint will add 5-30s to every edit. Disable for those projects.
Pair-programming with AI in the editor: your editor's formatter will fight auto-format. Pick one.
CI-only formatting policy: if your team enforces format/lint only at PR time, the kit's hooks duplicate work.

Hooks guide — full hook system reference
Hook source code — exact shell of every hook
Settings file structure — .claude/settings.json overview

Edit this page on GitHub

Enable Opt-In Hooks