diff --git a/docs/howtos/development/setup-pre-commit-hooks.md b/docs/howtos/development/setup-pre-commit-hooks.md
index 8d047a4b92bf49fb634b9ca894659bd2647960b7..74d60b74d1753357cf2f1df8a4e00ee59fa151b3 100644
--- a/docs/howtos/development/setup-pre-commit-hooks.md
+++ b/docs/howtos/development/setup-pre-commit-hooks.md
@@ -8,11 +8,14 @@ We add pre-commit hooks in order to run various linting and auto-formatting tool
before they are committed and pushed to GitLab. This how-to guide covers how to add pre-commit
hooks to an existing project.
-## Standard hooks to add to all projects
-
!!! info
If you are using one of our boilerplates, an appropriate set of hooks will already be present.
+Projects should usually have a standard set of pre-commit hooks and some additional
+language-specific hooks
+
+## Standard hooks to add to all projects
+
Add the following hooks to all projects, by placing them in `.pre-commit-config.yaml` at the root
of the project:
@@ -54,34 +57,10 @@ repos:
[set-up renovatebot](site:explanations/renovatebot) to keep this and your project's other
dependencies up-to-date.
-## Installing pre-commit hooks
-
-After adding a `.pre-commit-config.yaml` or modifying it, the following should be run in order to
-set-up the hooks:
-
-```sh
-pre-commit install
-```
-
-## Testing pre-commit hooks
+## Python-specific hooks
-Normally, pre-commit will run against files which are staged to be committed. To test the
-hooks separately from a git commit against all files in your repository, for
-instance if to re-format all existing source code to conform to a relevant style guide,
-run:
-
-```sh
-pre-commit run --all-files
-```
-
-## Language-specific hooks
-
-Additionally, hooks should be added to process the particular source code languages contained in
-the project:
-
-### Python
-
-The following pre-commit plugins should be added for Python projects (replacing the rev parameters
+Additionally, the following pre-commit plugins should be added to `.pre-commit-config.yaml` for
+Python projects (replacing the rev parameters
with latest releases of the plugins):
```yaml
@@ -119,12 +98,12 @@ with latest releases of the plugins):
args: [--explicit-package-bases]
```
-### Java
+## Java-specific hooks
-To ensure your Java source is formatted consistently, use the
+Additionally, we use the
[google-java-format](https://gitlab.developers.cam.ac.uk/uis/devops/continuous-delivery/precommit-google-java-format)
-pre-commit hook by adding the following to your
-`.pre-commit-config.yaml` in the root of your project(s):
+hook to ensure that Java source is formatted consistently. Add the following to
+`pre-commit-config.yaml` for Java projects:
```yaml
- repo: https://gitlab.developers.cam.ac.uk/uis/devops/continuous-delivery/precommit-google-java-format
@@ -154,20 +133,79 @@ path.
If your Java project requires a different version of Java to compile, you can use
[sdkman](https://sdkman.io/) to easily switch between different versions at your command line.
-#### Configuring Git to ignore bulk formatting commits
+## Installing pre-commit hooks
-Adding the
-[google-java-format](https://gitlab.developers.cam.ac.uk/uis/devops/continuous-delivery/precommit-google-java-format)
-pre-commit hook to an existing project can result in formatting a large number of files. If you
-use `git blame` to show changes from previous commits, a single commit with a large number of
-formatting changes can reduce the usefulness. To avoid this issue, commit a file in the root of
-your project called `.git-blame-ignore-revs` (or similar) and add to it a list of the commit
-SHAs to ignore. To configure git to ignore these commits, use:
+After adding a `.pre-commit-config.yaml` or modifying it, the following should be run in order to
+set-up the hooks:
```sh
+pre-commit-install
+```
+
+The above command will also need to be run after the repository has been newly-cloned in order to
+set-up the hooks on your local copy.
+
+## Using pre-commit
+
+Having been set-up, pre-commit will run against staged files whenever you run `git commit` in this
+repository. If files do not conform to the checks, then where possible the pre-commit hooks will
+modify them accordingly. The commit will be aborted.
+
+The modified files can then be re-staged with `git add` and the commit re-tried.
+
+## Resolving existing compliance failures
+
+The behaviour above will likely not be sufficient when adding pre-commit to an existing project.
+For example:
+
+- you may desire to re-format all existing source code to conform to a relevant style guide
+- when a repository is using our
+[standard CI templates](https://gitlab.developers.cam.ac.uk/uis/devops/continuous-delivery/ci-templates/),
+the CI pipeline `pre-commit` job executes the checks against _all_ files in the repository. This
+will cause the pipeline to fail if there is any existing code which does not conform to the
+pre-commit checks.
+
+You can execute the hooks separately from a git commit against all files in your repository by running:
+
+```sh
+pre-commit run --all-files
+```
+
+## Configuring Git to ignore bulk formatting commits¶
+
+Adding pre-commit hooks to an existing project can result in formatting a large number of files. If
+you use git blame to show changes from previous commits, a single commit with a large number of
+formatting changes can reduce the usefulness.
+
+This will often produce a large set of formatting changes which do not affect the behaviour or
+design of the code. Once committed, these would limit the usefulness of `git blame`, since many
+lines of code would be caught up in this bulk-formatting-change commit.
+
+To avoid this, having applied the commit its SHA can be added to a `.git-blame-ignore-revs` file in
+the root of the repository. For example:
+
+```bash
+# initial pre-commit formatting changes
+c998bb1ed4b3285398c9c7797135d3f060243c6a
+```
+
+You can then configure _your local copy_ of the repository by running:
+
+```bash
git config blame.ignoreRevsFile .git-blame-ignore-revs
```
+and commit the file for the benefit of your colleagues:
+
+```bash
+git add .git-blame-ignore-revs
+git commit -m "chore: add .git-blame-ignore-revs"
+```
+
+It should be noted that `git config` changes do not get pushed or persisted, so these commits will
+still show in the `blame` view on GitLab and for other users unless/until they set
+`blame.ignoreRevsFile` in their local copy of the repository.
+
## Summary
In this how-to you learned how to set-up a standard set of pre-commit hooks on a project.