Fixed commit-msg hook warning on emoji-prefixed commits

[9larsons]

Problem

The commit-msg hook's "user-facing changes should start with an emoji" check never recognizes an actual emoji, so the warning fires on every commit that correctly follows our emoji convention.

In .github/hooks/commit-msg.bash it tested the first word against POSIX [[:punct:]]:

if [[ ! "$first_word" =~ ^[[:punct:]] ]]; then
    echo "Warning: User-facing changes should start with an emoji"
fi

Emoji (🐛 ✨ 🎨 🌐 💡) are not punctuation, so the negated test is always true → the warning always prints. Ironically a non-emoji prefix like *Fixed or :bug: passed the check.

Solution

Detect emoji by stripping ASCII bytes from the first word and checking whether anything (a multi-byte emoji) remains:

if [[ -z "$(printf '%s' "$first_word" | LC_ALL=C tr -d '\000-\177')" ]]; then
    echo "Warning: User-facing changes should start with an emoji"
fi

tr is portable across the macOS/Linux shells contributors use, and this keeps the check a non-blocking warning.

Testing

Verified against representative subjects:

Subject	Before	After
🐛 Fixed …	⚠️ warns (wrong)	✅ ok
✨ Added …	⚠️ warns (wrong)	✅ ok
🌐 Updated …	⚠️ warns (wrong)	✅ ok
Fixed … (no emoji)	⚠️ warns	⚠️ warns
*Fixed …	✅ ok (wrong)	⚠️ warns

ref https://linear.app/ghost/issue/PLA-76

[coderabbitai]

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ℹ️ Recent review info

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between bde342e and e322f1f.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• .github/hooks/commit-msg.bash

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Walkthrough

The PR updates the emoji validation logic in the Git commit-msg hook. The hook now detects emoji in the first word of the commit subject by removing all ASCII bytes using tr under LC_ALL=C and checking whether non-ASCII bytes remain. This replaces the previous punctuation-based regex condition that could incorrectly warn on correctly formatted commits.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title directly and accurately describes the main change: fixing the commit-msg hook's incorrect warning behavior on emoji-prefixed commits.
Description check	✅ Passed	The description thoroughly explains the problem, solution, and testing for the emoji detection fix, directly aligned with the changeset.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

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✨ Finishing Touches

📝 Generate docstrings

• Create stacked PR
• Commit on current branch

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch fix/commit-msg-emoji-detection

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