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prek

prek

pre-commit is a framework to run hooks written in many languages, and it manages the language toolchain and dependencies for running the hooks.

prek is a reimagined version of pre-commit, built in Rust. It is designed to be a faster, dependency-free and drop-in alternative for it, while also providing some additional long-requested features.

Note

Although prek is pretty new, it's already powering real‑world projects—see Who is using prek?. If you're looking for an alternative to pre-commit, please give it a try—we'd love your feedback!

Please note that some subcommands and languages are still missing for full drop‑in parity with pre-commit. Track the remaining gaps here: TODO.

Features

  • 🚀 A single binary with no dependencies, does not require Python or any other runtime.
  • ⚡ Faster than pre-commit and more efficient in disk space usage.
  • 🔄 Fully compatible with the original pre-commit configurations and hooks.
  • 🏗️ Built-in support for monorepos (i.e. workspace mode).
  • 🐍 Integration with uv for managing Python virtual environments and dependencies.
  • 🛠️ Improved toolchain installations for Python, Node.js, Bun, Go, Rust and Ruby, shared between hooks.
  • 📦 Built-in Rust-native implementation of some common hooks.

Why prek?

prek is faster

  • It is multiple times faster than pre-commit and takes up half the disk space.
  • It redesigned how hook environments and toolchains are managed, they are all shared between hooks, which reduces the disk space usage and speeds up the installation process.
  • Repositories are cloned in parallel, and hooks are installed in parallel if their dependencies are disjoint.
  • Hooks can run in parallel by priority (hooks with the same priority may run concurrently), reducing end-to-end runtime.
  • It uses uv for creating Python virtualenvs and installing dependencies, which is known for its speed and efficiency.
  • It implements some common hooks in Rust, built in prek, which are faster than their Python counterparts.
  • It supports repo: builtin for offline, zero-setup hooks, which is not available in pre-commit.

prek provides a better user experience

  • No need to install Python or any other runtime, just download a single binary.
  • No hassle with your Python version or virtual environments, prek automatically installs the required Python version and creates a virtual environment for you.
  • Built-in support for workspaces (or monorepos), each subproject can have its own .pre-commit-config.yaml file.
  • prek run has some nifty improvements over pre-commit run, such as:
    • prek run --directory <dir> runs hooks for files in the specified directory, no need to use git ls-files -- <dir> | xargs pre-commit run --files anymore.
    • prek run --last-commit runs hooks for files changed in the last commit.
    • prek run [HOOK] [HOOK] selects and runs multiple hooks.
  • prek list command lists all available hooks, their ids, and descriptions, providing a better overview of the configured hooks.
  • prek auto-update supports --cooldown-days to mitigate open source supply chain attacks.
  • prek provides shell completions for prek run <hook_id> command, making it easier to run specific hooks without remembering their ids.

For more detailed improvements prek offers, take a look at Difference from pre-commit.

Who is using prek?

prek is pretty new, but it is already being used or recommend by some projects and organizations:

Badges

Show that your project uses prek with a badge in your README:

prek

[![prek](https://img.shields.io/endpoint?url=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/j178/prek/master/docs/assets/badge-v0.json)](https://github.com/j178/prek)

<a href="https://github.com/j178/prek">
  <img src="https://img.shields.io/endpoint?url=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/j178/prek/master/docs/assets/badge-v0.json" alt="prek">
</a>

.. image:: https://img.shields.io/endpoint?url=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/j178/prek/master/docs/assets/badge-v0.json
   :target: https://github.com/j178/prek
   :alt: prek