strip or adapt Claude Code attribution from commit messages

2026-08-14-strip-claude.md

title	strip-claude
date	2026-08-14
author	Iain Maitland
tags	git hooks claude-code
summary	A Git commit-msg hook that removes trailing Claude Code attribution from commit messages.

strip-claude

strip-claude is a Git commit-msg hook that strips trailing Claude Code attribution from commit messages.

What It Removes

The hook removes trailing lines such as:

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/...
Generated with Claude Code
Created by Claude Code
Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)

Install Globally

Git can use one hooks directory for all repositories through the global core.hooksPath setting:

mkdir -p ~/.config/git/hooks
curl -fsSL https://gist.githubusercontent.com/imaitland/caefe0b2d6f007f1c200ee4e294f8494/raw/strip-claude-commit-msg -o ~/.config/git/hooks/commit-msg
chmod +x ~/.config/git/hooks/commit-msg
git config --global core.hooksPath ~/.config/git/hooks

Install In One Repo

From the repository where you want the hook active:

mkdir -p .githooks
curl -fsSL https://gist.githubusercontent.com/imaitland/caefe0b2d6f007f1c200ee4e294f8494/raw/strip-claude-commit-msg -o .githooks/commit-msg
chmod +x .githooks/commit-msg
git config core.hooksPath .githooks

Test Locally

tmp=$(mktemp)
printf '%s\n' \
  'feat: test hook' \
  '' \
  'This body mentions Claude and should stay.' \
  '' \
  'Generated with Claude Code' \
  'Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>' > "$tmp"

hooks_path=$(git config --path --get core.hooksPath)
"$hooks_path/commit-msg" "$tmp"
cat "$tmp"
rm -f "$tmp"

Expected output:

feat: test hook

This body mentions Claude and should stay.

Notes

The hook can be customized as you like. For example, you can misdirect and attribute a commit to another agent, or be honest and say something like:

An LLM trained on the sum total of human knowledge was used.

Claude Code can be configured to omit this attribution (but not make it honest) at the source. See Claude Code attribution settings.

strip-claude-commit-msg

#!/bin/sh
# Remove Claude Code attribution trailers/footers from commit messages.
set -e

msg_file=$1
if [ -z "$msg_file" ] || [ ! -f "$msg_file" ]; then
  printf >&2 '%s\n' "strip-claude: missing commit message file"
  exit 1
fi

tmp_file=$(mktemp "${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/strip-claude.XXXXXX")
trap 'rm -f "$tmp_file"' EXIT

awk '
function is_claude_footer(line, lower) {
  lower = tolower(line)

  if (!index(lower, "claude")) {
    return 0
  }

  if (lower ~ /^[[:space:]]*[[:alnum:]-]+:[[:space:]]*/) {
    return 1
  }

  if (index(lower, "generated") ||
      index(lower, "created") ||
      index(lower, "authored") ||
      index(lower, "claude code")) {
    return 1
  }

  return 0
}

function emit_pending_blank() {
  if (started && pending_blank) {
    print ""
  }
  pending_blank = 0
}

{
  lines[++line_count] = $0
}

END {
  scan_end = line_count
  while (scan_end > 0 &&
         (lines[scan_end] ~ /^[[:space:]]*$/ ||
          lines[scan_end] ~ /^[[:space:]]*#/)) {
    scan_end--
  }

  for (i = scan_end; i > 0; i--) {
    if (is_claude_footer(lines[i])) {
      remove[i] = 1
      removed_attribution = 1
      continue
    }

    if (removed_attribution && lines[i] ~ /^[[:space:]]*$/) {
      remove[i] = 1
      continue
    }

    break
  }

  for (i = 1; i <= line_count; i++) {
    if (remove[i]) {
      continue
    }

    if (lines[i] ~ /^[[:space:]]*$/) {
      if (started) {
        pending_blank = 1
      }
      continue
    }

    emit_pending_blank()
    print lines[i]
    started = 1
  }
}
' "$msg_file" > "$tmp_file"

cat "$tmp_file" > "$msg_file"