Why not both? Provide the tools to run it as a pre-commit hook and require the checks to pass for each PR.

You are using Windows. So, try this (it worked for me)

npx husky add .husky/commit-msg "npx --no-install commitlint --edit "$1""

with double quotes instead. Note that $1 also needs double quotes.

You can use commitlint with git pre-commit hook.

The simplest way I found to use it is via pre-commit framework. The nice thing is that you can easily add and customize any other check before commiting, here's a list of supported hooks.

Adding commitlint with pre-commit

pip install pre-commit
or brew install pre-commit

Create your .pre-commit-config.yaml (check and update rev if needed):

repos:
- repo: https://github.com/alessandrojcm/commitlint-pre-commit-hook
  rev: v2.3.0
  hooks:
      - id: commitlint
        stages: [commit-msg]
        additional_dependencies: ['@commitlint/config-conventional']
        args: ["--config",".commitlintrc.yaml"]

You have a lot of options with a commitlint configuration file .commitlintrc.yaml:

rules:
  body-leading-blank: [1, always]
  body-max-line-length: [2, always, 100]
  footer-leading-blank: [1, always]
  footer-max-line-length: [2, always, 100]
  header-max-length: [2, always, 100]
  subject-case:
    - 2
    - never
    - [sentence-case, start-case, pascal-case, upper-case]
  subject-empty: [2, never]
  subject-full-stop: [2, never, "."]
  type-case: [2, always, lower-case]
  type-empty: [2, never]
  type-enum:
    - 2
    - always
    - [build, chore, ci, docs, feat, fix, perf, refactor, revert, style, test]

Install commit message hook pre-commit install --hook-type commit-msg

And then you can try to git commit.

You can also install commitlint directly via npm, here's how.

# Install commitlint cli and conventional config
npm install --save-dev @commitlint/{config-conventional,cli}

# Configure commitlint to use conventional config
echo "module.exports = {extends: ['@commitlint/config-conventional']}" > commitlint.config.js

I recommend Conventional Commits format.

The commit message should be structured as follows:

<type>[optional scope]: <description>

[optional body]

[optional footer(s)]

Default types: build, chore, ci, docs, feat, fix, perf, refactor, revert, style, test

Examples:

• feat(parser): add ability to parse arrays
• docs: correct spelling of CHANGELOG
• ci: add docker build

Some benefits of using this structure:

• Automatically generating CHANGELOGs.
• Automatically determining a semantic version bump (based on the types of commits landed).
• Communicating the nature of changes to teammates, the public, and other stakeholders.

You're trying to run a command literally named:

./node_modules/.bin/eslint --stdin --stdin-filename sfa/src/SFAApp.js

rather than trying to run a command named:

./node_modules/.bin/eslint

with arguments:

--stdin

and:

--stdin-filename

and:

sfa/src/SFAApp.js

The cure is to fix your double quote placement. Once you do, you will probably have a second problem:

git show ":$file" | $(./$path/node_modules/.bin/eslint --stdin --stdin-filename "$file")

will run the command with the arguments, but then, because it is inside $(...), will take its output as a command. I know nothing of eslint, but it seems likely that this should read:

git show ":$file" | ./$path/node_modules/.bin/eslint --stdin --stdin-filename "$file"

(I'm also not at all sure what the silliness with $path is about. The line path=(${files[0]//// }) sets path to the first file path-name component of the files listed by git diff, e.g., if the output is a/b/c.js, path is set to a.)