Compatibility with pre-commit

prek aims to be a practical drop-in replacement for pre-commit for existing repositories, hook configs, and day-to-day workflows.

What works unchanged

Existing .pre-commit-config.yaml and .pre-commit-config.yml files work in prek. See Configuration.
Most common pre-commit workflows keep working, including the usual hook repositories and manifests.
Several upstream command spellings are still accepted as compatibility aliases, so existing scripts do not need to be rewritten immediately.

Preferred command and flag spellings

prek keeps compatibility aliases for the commands below, but the preferred spellings use a more descriptive CLI layout.

Compatibility spelling	Preferred `prek` spelling
`prek install-hooks`	`prek prepare-hooks`
`prek install --install-hooks`	`prek install --prepare-hooks`
`prek autoupdate`	`prek auto-update`
`prek gc`	`prek cache gc`
`prek clean`	`prek cache clean`
`prek init-templatedir`	`prek util init-template-dir`
`prek init-template-dir`	`prek util init-template-dir`
`pre-commit migrate-config`	Not provided directly; use `prek util yaml-to-toml` to migrate YAML to `prek.toml`

Why the CLI is reorganized

pre-commit keeps many maintenance commands as separate top-level entries. prek reorganizes some of them so the command tree is easier to navigate:

related cache operations live under prek cache
helper and migration commands live under prek util
prepare-hooks describes what the command actually does more clearly than install-hooks

That improves discoverability without dropping compatibility, because the older spellings remain available.

Not implemented

pre-commit hazmat is not implemented in prek.

If you need strict upstream portability

If the same config must continue working in upstream pre-commit, stay with the YAML config format and avoid prek-only features such as:

prek.toml
repo: builtin
glob mappings for files and exclude
workspace mode

See Configuration for config format guidance, Configuration Reference for key-level details, and Differences for broader behavior and CLI differences.