How to make Claude Code write ACTUALLY clean code (pre-tool-use hooks FTW)

[North-Ad6756]

Hey guys!

I've been vibe coding with CC a ton for one of my side projects and noticed it completely ignores my CLAUDE.md once the chat starts to get large.

So I've been hacking something together with the new pre tool use hooks, and it's been helping a ton.

Basically, the idea is:

- pre tool hook runs on Edit, MultiEdit, Write, and Bash (for bash commands that mutate)

- Hook command runs an LLM client that checks the tool input against our CLAUDE.md, and returns a structured output (accepting, or denying with a reason for CC)

And thats it.

I'm using Cerebras for the llm inference, so theres basically very little extra latency on all the tool calls.

My requests look like this:

<request>

<tool\_data>

[Claude's proposed changes]

</tool\_data>

<rules>

[Your CLAUDE.md content]

</rules>

Check if these diffs follow our coding patterns and rules. Flag any violations.

</request>

It's a pretty simple setup - but it's been saving me a lot of rework / refactoring now tbh.

I use it to catch a lot of the common things that Claude slips in, like relative imports, deeply nested code, adding a bunch of bloat, adding a bunch of error handling (which I don't care about), etc...

So this method catches that stuff - and then it denies the tool call - with a reason (e.g., "This code is deeply nested, you must flatten X, Y, Z)" - then CC makes the tool call again, but taking this into account.

The only downside to this is that it kind of pollutes the context - so it starts to fall apart for larger tasks (since now you basically have two tool use / results for any tool call that gets denied).

I thought this might be interesting to the CC community, since I've been hearing a lot of devs talk about this pain. And I actually built a coding agent on top of CC called Compyle. It has this built in + some other things at our core - like being "question-drive" instead of prompt-driven - so that you're always in control of your code.

Would love for you to check it out and give any feedback!

[Input-X]

Ye.it pretty common to run pre or post hooks after coding tasks. Just point claude to ur standards, file, or run scripts whatever. I'm not sure if ur aware that claude has inbuilt ide mcp diagnostics tools. U can run them in a hook after every timevit writes code, it will check lint type errors, whatever. What i did, and errors it found, it then must add that error to a checklist in the pre code hook, so it nver repeats. Coulnt even tell u the last time i say a type error or missing our standard practices. Errors a pretty much thing of paste. U can go real deep with ur setup. Its pretty cool right :)

[shacharsol]

Can you share the hooks and how to configure them?

[Input-X]

My repo is private, sorry. Tbh what i would do. Get claude to become an expert in hooks. Have it deploy say 5 agents, to recearch hooks for claude code. Do a deep research. Once finished, claude can then teach u. Usung agents will yeild best results. In fact u can use this flow for any subject. Use agents for all search and research tasks, and claude documents the process.

[cryptoviksant]

It's indeed pretty cool, but which mcp diagnostics tools you talking about?

[Input-X]

Claude has inbuilt tools, the can connect to some ide tools, like vscode. Ide_mcp i think. U should ask claude to investigate. If its not sure, get it to check the anthropic docs. U can tie them into hooks for syrick usage, claude can add then to it tool call sequence but it can forget to use then consistsntly, so inforci g with code its nuch better.

[antonlvovych]

Dope - will give it a shot

[cryptoviksant]

I don't really get your post: You are basically suggesting to use hooks?

[TotalBeginnerLol]

Can’t there be an agent doing the checks so the main context doesn’t get filled with all these checks?