Skip to content
Apothem
Examples

Minimal hook

Minimal Apothem hook example — fire a check on every file write.

This example shows the smallest possible Apothem hook: a PreToolUse hook that fires before every Write tool call and logs the target path.

Hook script

# src/apothem/hooks/log_writes.py
import json, sys

data = json.load(sys.stdin)
path = data.get("tool_input", {}).get("file_path", "unknown")
print(f"[apothem] Writing to: {path}", file=sys.stderr)
sys.exit(0)  # exit 0 = proceed; non-zero = block

Registration in settings.json

{
  "hooks": {
    "PreToolUse": [
      {
        "matcher": "Write",
        "hooks": [
          {
            "type": "command",
            "command": "python src/apothem/hooks/log_writes.py"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Testing the hook

Make any file write in Claude Code and observe the stderr output in the hook trace panel.

Blocking writes

Change sys.exit(0) to sys.exit(1) and print a JSON block to stdout:

print(json.dumps({"decision": "block", "reason": "blocked by log_writes"}))
sys.exit(1)

On this page