Why are Claude Code hooks not working?

[huang041]

I installed the plugin using the following commands:

# Add this repo as a marketplace
/plugin marketplace add affaan-m/everything-claude-code

# Install the plugin
/plugin install everything-claude-code@everything-claude-code

After installation, I asked Claude Code to run npm run dev, but the hook did not trigger as expected.

I checked the documentation and noticed that the hook configuration uses a matcher like:

"matcher": "tool == \"Bash\" && tool_input.command matches \"(npm run dev|pnpm( run)? dev|yarn dev|bun run dev)\""

It seems that this matcher syntax is not supported, which might be why the hook is not working in my case.

[drproject-coding]

same issue here

[affaan-m]

That report was valid for older ECC hook configs.

Claude Code's matcher support is much narrower than the old expression-style examples implied. Current main / v1.8.0 no longer relies on tool == ... && tool_input ... matcher expressions for the core hooks. The repo now uses simple event matchers like Bash, Edit, Write, and Stop, and does the real filtering inside script files. That change was part of the recent hook reliability pass.

If npm run dev still does nothing on your machine, the first things to check are:

1. you are on the current plugin version, not an older cached install
2. your installed hook config contains the newer simple matchers
3. ECC_DISABLED_HOOKS is not disabling the relevant Bash hook
4. CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT resolves correctly

If this still reproduces on current main, open an issue with the installed hooks.json snippet and I can turn it into a targeted fix instead of guessing.

[chenhz01]

Worth making the failure loud before changing config: run claude --debug and watch the PreToolUse line — an event that fires with zero matched hooks means the matcher never matched, which separates "syntax rejected" from "command never reached".

Quick check that holds for either matcher flavour:

jq '.hooks.PreToolUse[] | {matcher, command}' ~/.claude/settings.json

No matcher key means the hook runs on every Bash call. A matcher written in the old expression form (tool == "Bash" && tool_input.command matches ...) evaluates silently to false on current Claude Code, which only accepts the plain event/name form — so the hook looks installed and simply never fires.

I build install-time gates that validate config like this and report three states (pass / warn / block) instead of failing silently — happy to wire one into the plugin install step if that is useful.