One config file. Every place your team commits.¶

Laptop, CI, pull request, AI agent — the same cchk.toml, the same rules, the same diagnostics, with a fix you can paste.

Get started Browse the rules

$ echo 'Fix: add streaming support' | commit-check --message
CC001 message check failed ==> Fix: add streaming support
The commit message should follow Conventional Commits. See https://www.conventionalcommits.org
Suggest: Use "fix: add streaming support"
Docs: https://commit-check.com/rules/#cc001

It does not just say no. When the correction is unambiguous, it hands you the line.

Commit Check runs in repositories across these organizations, and in many more.

Apache

Discovery Unicamp

Texas Instruments

OpenCADC

Extrawest

Chainlift

Mila

RLinf

Istio Ecosystem

Juniper Networks

French National Parks

OpenDriveLab

UT Austin RobIn

WorldArena2

moniqo

elu mobility

Open Energy Platform

Collective

Why check commit metadata at all¶

Changelog tools have nothing to group by

git-cliff and semantic-release read the type: prefix on the subject line to decide what a commit was. Without a consistent subject there is nothing to read, and the release notes get written by hand from git log.
git bisect stops at a merge commit

When the first bad commit is a merge, the change is in one of two parents or in the conflict resolution. Bisect cannot narrow it any further.
The author is ec2-user

A build box with no user.name set writes itself into the history. git log --author finds the commit; there is no person on the other end of it.
A DCO check fails on a branch you already wrote

Signed-off-by costs one -s at commit time. Adding it afterwards means git rebase --signoff across the whole branch and a force-push.

None of these are caught by a linter, a type checker or a test suite. They are caught in review — which means inconsistently, and after the work is done.

The check that runs in CI is the same one that runs in your commit-msg hook. Fixing a subject line at commit time costs a second; fixing it after CI costs a full run and a force-push.

What your team actually sees¶

On a pull request, every finding carries a rule ID, the value that failed, and what to do about it — in the job summary, as annotations on the changed files, and as a single comment that is edited in place rather than added to.

Scope	Checked value	Failed checks
Commit 2/2 (5584f46)	`bad msg`	CC001 message
Branch	`Feature/Add-Login`	CC201 branch

Commit message
  ✔ PR title (feat: add login page)
  ✔ Commit 1/2 (d87faca) (feat: add login page)
  ✖ Commit 2/2 (5584f46) (1 failure)
      CC001 message
        value: bad msg
        The commit message should follow Conventional Commits.
        Suggest: Use <type>(<scope>): <description>
Branch
  ✖ Branch (1 failure)
      CC201 branch
        value: Feature/Add-Login
        The branch should follow Conventional Branch.
        Suggest: Rename the branch to "feature/Add-Login" (git branch -m feature/Add-Login)
        Fix: feature/Add-Login

And in the merge box, where the decision actually gets made:

The Commit Check check run in a pull request merge box, reporting 2 of 4 checks failed — The hosted GitHub App reports one check run per commit. The title names what failed, so nobody opens Details to learn whether it was the message, the branch or an author email.

A terminal recording: a commit message and a branch name are rejected, then accepted once corrected — The same engine on the command line. The recording is replaced by a still frame when your system asks for reduced motion.

The same terminal at the end of the recording, both checks having run — The same engine on the command line. The recording is replaced by a still frame when your system asks for reduced motion.

Start with two commands¶

$ pip install commit-check
$ commit-check --message --branch

No configuration file needed to start — sensible defaults apply immediately, and you tighten them when you are ready. Releases carry SLSA Level 3 build provenance, so you can verify an artifact came from this repository's pipeline before you install it.

Pick where it runs¶

One policy engine, five places to enforce it. Every one of them reads the same cchk.toml.

Command line

The engine itself. Any forge, any CI, plus a JSON mode and a Python API for scripts and agents.

Getting started
pre-commit hook

The fastest feedback there is: the commit is rejected before it exists. Opt-in by nature, so pair it with one of the enforced surfaces.

Guide
GitHub Action

Runs in CI whether or not the hook ran. Make it a required check and a violation cannot merge, with per-rule outputs later steps can gate on.

Guide
GitHub App

No workflow file and no CI minutes. Install it once and every push and pull request gets a check run.

Guide
MCP server

The validations as structured tools, so an AI coding agent checks its own commit before it writes it.

Guide

Pricing¶

The CLI, the pre-commit hook, the GitHub Action and the MCP server are MIT licensed — no account, no limits, nothing to buy. The plans below are for the hosted GitHub App, the one surface we run for you.

Open Source · Free

Public repositories, on any account.
Personal · Free

Private repositories on a personal account.
Team · $19 / month

Private repositories in an organization, however many of you there are. 14-day free trial.

Install the App

Nothing is blocked while you try it. Without a config file the App reports its findings but leaves the check run neutral, and it never rejects a push — the only way Commit Check blocks a merge is if you make it a required check yourself.

GitHub can enforce some of the same policies natively, but the commit-metadata rules sit behind its Enterprise plan. For a twenty-person team that is the difference between $4 and $21 a seat — about $340 a month for a regular expression, which reports a bare mismatch where Commit Check reports a rule ID, a suggestion and a link. Nineteen dollars is what the same twenty people cost here — and the same twenty thousand. The arithmetic and the honest caveats.

Questions¶

Does it read my source code?

No. The CLI validates commit metadata and never opens your files. The hosted App uses a blob-filtered fetch and a sparse checkout that materializes only the config files, so no other repository content is ever downloaded. Content scanning is deliberately out of scope.

Can a developer bypass it?

The pre-commit hook, yes — git commit --no-verify is one flag, and that is by design: a local hook is fast feedback, not a gate. The enforcement boundary is CI. Make the Action or the App a required status check and a violating change cannot merge, however it was committed.

Will turning it on block everyone tomorrow?

No. Without a config file the App reports in full but leaves the check neutral, and it never rejects a push. Most rules are off until you turn them on — the rules reference marks which start on.

What about the history I already have?

Only new commits are checked. Nothing asks you to rewrite what is already merged.

Does it only work on GitHub?

The CLI and the pre-commit hook run anywhere Git does — GitLab, Gitea, Bitbucket, a local machine. The Action and the App are GitHub-specific because they integrate with GitHub's check runs.

Do I need Node.js?

No. On a modern Python there are no runtime dependencies at all.

Which Python versions are supported?

3.10 through 3.14. CI runs the suite on all five, across Linux, macOS and Windows — fifteen combinations on every change.

How do I know the package I installed is the one you built?

Releases carry SLSA Level 3 build provenance. The GitHub Action verifies the attestation with gh attestation verify before it installs anything, and fails the step if verification does not pass.

Who is behind this?

Commit Check is written and maintained by Xianpeng Shen, who also runs the hosted App. The engine, the Action, the App and the MCP server are open source under the commit-check organization — if the hosted App ever stops, the GitHub Action reads the same config and reports the same rule IDs.

Questions, bugs, contributions¶

Start a discussion if you are weighing up a policy, are not sure whether something is a bug, or want to know how other projects have handled it.

Open an issue when something is broken or missing — include the output of commit-check --format json, which carries the rule ID and the value that failed.

Send a pull request to any of the repositories. The engine, the Action, the App and the MCP server are separate projects.

Discussions Issues