Merge pull request #5 from nextstrain/add-pre-commit-to-readme

Add pre commit to readme

README.md

@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 # Nextstrain repository for yellow fever virus
 
-##TODO## finish updating this
+<!-- ##TODO## finish updating this -->
+
 This repository is in the process of being upgraded to follow the
 [pathogen repo
 guide](https://github.com/nextstrain/pathogen-repo-guide/).
@@ -10,3 +11,24 @@ guide](https://github.com/nextstrain/pathogen-repo-guide/).
 Follow the [standard installation
 instructions](https://docs.nextstrain.org/en/latest/install.html) for
 Nextstrain's suite of software tools.
+
+## Working on this repo
+
+This repo is configured to use [pre-commit](https://pre-commit.com),
+to help automatically catch common coding errors and syntax issues
+with changes before they are committed to the repo.
+.
+If you will be writing new code or otherwise working within this repo,
+please do the following to get started:
+
+1. install `pre-commit` by running either `python -m pip install
+   pre-commit` or `brew install pre-commit`, depending on your
+   preferred package management solution
+2. install the local git hooks by running `pre-commit install` from
+   the root of the repo
+3. when problems are detected, correct them in your local working tree
+   before committing them.
+
+Note that these pre-commit checks are also run in a GitHub Action when
+changes are pushed to GitHub, so correcting issues locally will
+prevent extra cycles of correction.