Paolo Bonzini [off-list ref] writes:
The way it can be used instead of the pre-commit hook
is now documented differently: it is for verification
that must *not* be skipped even for automatic commits
(if there is such a beast).
I really do not think we should encourage this as a verification
method. If you encourage it as such, I am sure people would
complain "Why can't I bypass this hook with --no-verify!!!".
I do not want to spend cycles defending the behaviour to error
out on non-zero exit from the hook.
Instead, I think you should _stress_ that people must _NOT_ use
this as a replacement for pre-commit hook.
The same comment applies to the comment in the example hook.