Gerrit supports plugin-based validation of commits.

New commit validation

Plugins implementing the CommitValidationListener interface can perform additional validation checks against new commits.

If the commit fails the validation, the plugin can either provide a message that will be sent back to the git client, or throw an exception which will cause the commit to be rejected.

Validation applies to both commits uploaded via git push, and new commits generated via Gerrit’s Web UI features such as the rebase, revert and cherry-pick buttons.

Out of the box, Gerrit includes a plugin that checks the length of the subject and body lines of commit messages on uploaded commits.

Pre-merge validation

Plugins implementing the MergeValidationListener interface can perform additional validation checks against commits before they are merged to the git repository.

If the commit fails the validation, the plugin can throw an exception which will cause the merge to fail.

Pre-upload validation

Plugins implementing the UploadValidationListener interface can perform additional validation checks before any upload operations (clone, fetch, pull). The validation is executed right before Gerrit begins to send a pack back to the git client.

If upload fails the validation, the plugin can throw an exception which will cause the upload to fail and the exception’s message text will be reported to the git client.

New project validation

Plugins implementing the ProjectCreationValidationListener interface can perform additional validation on project creation based on the input arguments.

E.g. a plugin could use this to enforce a certain name scheme for project names.

New group validation

Plugins implementing the GroupCreationValidationListener interface can perform additional validation on group creation based on the input arguments.

E.g. a plugin could use this to enforce a certain name scheme for group names.