PreToolUse

A set of checks that runs before the agent uses file-editing or shell tools. It validates scope, iteration limits, circuit-breaker rules, and potentially dangerous shell commands.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to review Edit, Write, and Bash actions during coding tasks and block changes or commands that fail the configured checks.
Why use it?
It catches unrelated file changes and risky commands before they affect the project.

Hook

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add hooks/michael-harris/devteam/pre-tool-use
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/michael-harris/devteam
Per session not measured What this adds to a session before it is invoked.
When invoked not measured Not applicable: nothing here is loaded into a session.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Security

Grade A, and why

PreToolUse scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the commands this hook runs, not an audit. A hook is shell that executes on your machine at the event it names, which is why every command in it is printed with what was found.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

hooks/hooks.json · 29 lines

What it actually says

{
  "PreToolUse": [
    {
      "matcher": "Edit|Write",
      "hooks": [
        {
          "type": "command",
          "command": "node \"${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/hooks/run-hook.js\" pre-tool-use-hook",
          "description": "Validate tool calls, check iteration limits, circuit breaker"
        },
        {
          "type": "prompt",
          "prompt": "The agent is about to modify a file. Check if this modification is within the current task scope. The task scope should be defined in the agent's prompt context. If the file being modified is clearly unrelated to the task (e.g., modifying auth code when the task is about UI styling), return ok:false with a reason. If it's reasonable, return ok:true.",
          "description": "LLM-based scope pre-check — catches obvious scope violations before they happen"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "matcher": "Bash",
      "hooks": [
        {
          "type": "command",
          "command": "node \"${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/hooks/run-hook.js\" pre-tool-use-hook",
          "description": "Validate bash commands, check for dangerous operations"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}
Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 29 lines scan A c19d48a66215

Subscribe to this mod's changes

PreToolUse is a hook published in the GitHub repository michael-harris/devteam (18 stars, last pushed 6mo ago), licensed MIT. Its token cost is not measured: a hook is shell that never enters the context. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.