README

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Installation • Quick start • Documentation

About

prek is a framework for running hooks on your code. It runs them before you commit changes, on demand, or in CI. These hooks can format files, catch lint errors, detect secrets, or run any other command your project defines. prek also installs and manages the tools and dependencies they need.

You may already be familiar with the pre-commit tool. prek is a reimagined version of it, built in Rust. It is faster and distributed as a single binary with no runtime dependencies. It is fully compatible with pre-commit configurations and hooks, so you can use it as a drop-in replacement without changing your setup.

Although prek is pretty new, it’s already powering real‑world projects like CPython, Apache Airflow, FastAPI, and more projects are picking it up—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!

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), including concurrent execution for independent same-depth projects.
• 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.

Installation

prek provides a standalone installer script to download and install the tool,

On Linux and macOS:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/j178/prek/releases/download/v0.4.13/prek-installer.sh | sh

On Windows:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://github.com/j178/prek/releases/download/v0.4.13/prek-installer.ps1 | iex"

prek is published as Python binary wheel to PyPI, you can install it using pip, uv (recommended), or pipx:

# Using uv (recommended)
uv tool install prek

# Using uvx (install and run in one command)
uvx prek

# Adding prek to the project dev-dependencies
uv add --dev prek

# Using pip
pip install prek

# Using pipx
pipx install prek

brew install prek

To use prek with mise (v2025.8.11 or later):

mise use prek

Install pre-compiled binaries from GitHub using cargo-binstall:

cargo binstall prek

Build from source using Cargo (Rust 1.95+ is required):

cargo install --locked prek

prek is published as a Node.js package and can be installed with any npm-compatible package manager:

# As a dev dependency
npm add -D @j178/prek
pnpm add -D @j178/prek
bun add -D @j178/prek

# Or install globally
npm install -g @j178/prek
pnpm add -g @j178/prek
bun install -g @j178/prek

# Or run directly without installing
npx @j178/prek --version
bunx @j178/prek --version

prek is available via Nixpkgs.

# Choose what's appropriate for your use case.
# One-off in a shell:
nix-shell -p prek

# NixOS or non-NixOS without flakes:
nix-env -iA nixos.prek

# Non-NixOS with flakes:
nix profile install nixpkgs#prek

prek is available as prek via conda-forge.

conda install conda-forge::prek

prek is available via Scoop.

scoop install main/prek

prek is available via winget.

winget install --id j178.Prek

prek is available via MacPorts.

sudo port install prek

Pre-built binaries are available for download from the GitHub releases page.

prek can be used in GitHub Actions via the j178/prek-action repository.

Example workflow:

name: Prek checks
on: [push, pull_request]

jobs:
  prek:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@3d3c42e5aac5ba805825da76410c181273ba90b1 # v7
      - uses: j178/prek-action@4e14d07f9231acabce116ccfca13b13dd9755ece # v3.0.0

This action installs prek and runs prek run --all-files on your repository.

prek is also available via taiki-e/install-action for installing various tools.

To let agents use prek, install the prek skill with gh skill (v2.90.0+):

gh skill install j178/prek prek

If installed via the standalone installer, prek can update itself to the latest version:

prek self update

Quick start

• I already use pre-commit: follow the short migration checklist in the quickstart guide to swap in prek safely.
• I'm new to pre-commit-style tools: learn the basics—creating a config, running hooks, and installing Git shims—in the beginner quickstart walkthrough.

Why prek?

prek is faster

• It is multiple times faster than pre-commit while also using less disk space.
• Hook environments and toolchains are shared across hooks instead of being duplicated per repository, which reduces both install time and cache size.
• Repository fetches and independent hook environment setup run in parallel, hooks can run concurrently by priority using reusable aliases, and independent workspace projects at the same directory depth can run concurrently.
• It uses uv for creating Python virtualenvs and installing dependencies, which is known for its speed and efficiency.
• For supported hooks from pre-commit-hooks, the automatic fast path runs built-in Rust implementations without requiring any configuration changes.
• The prek-only repo: builtin mode provides offline, zero-setup hooks, including native deny-pattern and require-pattern alternatives for common pygrep checks.

prek is easier to work with

• No need to install Python or any other runtime just to use prek; it is a single binary.
• Its language support covers every language available in pre-commit, plus Bun, Deno, mise, and PHP, and it automatically installs managed toolchains when needed for Python, Node.js, Bun, Deno, Go, mise, Rust, and Ruby.
• It supports native prek.toml in addition to pre-commit YAML, and prek util yaml-to-toml helps migrate existing configs.
• Built-in support for workspaces means monorepos can keep separate configs per project and still run everything from one command, while independent same-depth projects run concurrently without mixing file scopes.
• prek install and prek uninstall honor repo-local and worktree-local core.hooksPath.
• Hook groups let one config define workflows such as CI, linting, or formatting; --group, --require-group, and --no-group select them at runtime.
• prek run can select or skip multiple projects and hooks, target tracked files with repeatable --glob or --directory filters, pass explicit paths with --files, and preview the selection with --dry-run.
• The progress UI streams a live preview from running hooks, so long-running checks do not look stuck and failures are easier to diagnose.
• prek list, prek util identify, and prek util list-builtins -v make it easier to inspect configured hooks, debug file matching, and discover builtins with their supported options.

prek includes security-focused safeguards

• For supported managed toolchain downloads, prek verifies the downloaded archive or installer checksum before extracting or installing it, helping ensure the integrity of downloaded toolchains.
• prek update can keep newly published releases on hold with --cooldown-days, filter eligible tags with glob patterns, and freeze revisions to commit SHAs.
• prek update validates pinned SHA revisions against the fetched upstream refs, including impostor-commit detection, and keeps # frozen: comments in sync with the configured commit.
• prek update --check is useful in CI when you want updates or frozen-reference mismatches to fail the job without rewriting the config.

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 recommended by some projects and organizations. GitHub stars are current as of April 15, 2026.

• apache/airflow _{45,050 stars}
• apache/iggy _{4,116 stars}
• apache/lucene _{3,401 stars}
• ast-grep/ast-grep _{13,413 stars}
• astral-sh/ruff _{47,070 stars}
• astral-sh/ty _{18,308 stars}
• authlib/authlib _{5,271 stars}
• cachix/devenv _{6,665 stars}
• cocoindex-io/cocoindex _{6,865 stars}
• commitizen-tools/commitizen _{3,377 stars}
• DetachHead/basedpyright _{3,267 stars}
• django/djangoproject.com _{1,994 stars}
• fastapi/asyncer _{2,407 stars}
• fastapi/fastapi _{97,209 stars}
• fastapi/typer _{19,210 stars}
• Future-House/paper-qa _{8,377 stars}
• getsentry/sentry _{43,639 stars}
• godotengine/godot _{110,312 stars}
• home-assistant/core _{86,029 stars}
• jcrist/msgspec _{3,692 stars}
• jlowin/fastmcp _{24,539 stars}
• MoonshotAI/kimi-cli _{7,800 stars}
• openclaw/openclaw _{357,512 stars}
• OpenLineage/OpenLineage _{2,406 stars}
• pdm-project/pdm _{8,553 stars}
• prowler-cloud/prowler _{13,592 stars}
• pyodide/pyodide _{14,527 stars}
• python-attrs/attrs _{5,770 stars}
• python-telegram-bot/python-telegram-bot _{29,025 stars}
• python/cpython _{72,330 stars}
• simple-icons/simple-icons _{24,873 stars}

For a more comprehensive list of open-source projects using prek see the list of dependents on github.

Acknowledgements

This project is heavily inspired by the original pre-commit tool, and it wouldn't be possible without the hard work of the maintainers and contributors of that project.

And a special thanks to the Astral team for their remarkable projects, particularly uv, from which I've learned a lot on how to write efficient and idiomatic Rust code.