I automated my entire dev workflow with Claude Code hooks

Most people use Claude Code as a smarter terminal assistant. Type a request, read the response, approve the changes. That's fine, but it leaves a lot of capability on the table. Claude Code has a hook system that wires the AI directly into your existing workflow: your formatter, your test runner, your notification system. We've been running hooks in production-style setups for a few months now and the interaction model genuinely changes when the tool stops being conversational and starts being ambient. Here's what we actually run and why. What hooks are Hooks are defined in ~/.claude/settings.json under the hooks key. Each hook fires at a lifecycle event and runs a shell command. The four events that matter: PreToolUse -- fires before Claude runs a tool (file write, bash command, etc.) PostToolUse -- fires after a tool completes Notification -- fires when Claude sends status updates Stop -- fires when Claude finishes a response Hooks can be filtered by tool name, so you can target Bash