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README.md

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+
+# commit message check
+A pre-commit (project) hook to verify commit messages conform to a pattern. 
+Specifically it checks that the first `n` commits on a branch fit the pattern (checking evey commit is trivial with pygrep)
+This uses the `commit-msg` stage hook, be sure you have installed that hook.
+
+## the length of which branch?
+This tool assumes you are following the common convention of creating small feature branches from a default branch. 
+The default branch is found by inspecting `origin/HEAD`, you can overwrite this with the arg `-b=<some-weird-branch>`. 
+
+## usage
+Here's an example `.pre-commit-config.yaml` which enforces the first 3 commits on a branch have a message starting like `ABCD-001`, `TICK-33310`
+
+`.pre-commit-config.yaml`
+~~~ yaml
+default_install_hook_types: [pre-commit, commit-msg]
+repos:
+  - repo: https://github.com/kingalban/commit-msg-check.git
+    rev: v0.1.0
+    hooks:
+      - id: check-commit-message-pattern
+        args: [-n=3, "-p=^[A-Z]{4}-[0-9]+"]
+
+~~~