diff --git a/.pre-commit-config.yaml b/.pre-commit-config.yaml
new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.pre-commit-config.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+repos:
+- repo: https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks
+  rev: v2.4.0
+  hooks:
+  - id: trailing-whitespace
+  - id: flake8
+  - id: check-json
+  - id: check-yaml
+
+- repo: https://github.com/codespell-project/codespell
+  rev: v1.16.0
+  hooks:
+  - id: codespell
+    exclude: TODO
+    args: [-L iff]
+
+- repo: local
+  hooks:
+  - id: mypy
+    name: mypy
+    entry: mypy
+    args: [swh]
+    pass_filenames: false
+    language: system
+    types: [python]
+
+# unfortunately, we are far from being able to enable this...
+#- repo: https://github.com/PyCQA/pydocstyle.git
+#  rev: 4.0.0
+#  hooks:
+#  - id: pydocstyle
+#    name: pydocstyle
+#    description: pydocstyle is a static analysis tool for checking compliance with Python docstring conventions.
+#    entry: pydocstyle --convention=google
+#    language: python
+#    types: [python]
+
+# black requires py3.6+
+#- repo: https://github.com/python/black
+#  rev: 19.3b0
+#  hooks:
+#  - id: black
+#    language_version: python3
+#- repo: https://github.com/asottile/blacken-docs
+#  rev: v1.0.0-1
+#  hooks:
+#  - id: blacken-docs
+#    additional_dependencies: [black==19.3b0]
diff --git a/mypy.ini b/mypy.ini
--- a/mypy.ini
+++ b/mypy.ini
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 namespace_packages = True
 
 # due to the conditional import logic on swh.journal, in some cases a specific
-# type: ignore is neede, in other it isn't...
+# type: ignore is needed, in other it isn't...
 warn_unused_ignores = False
 
 # support for sqlalchemy magic: see https://github.com/dropbox/sqlalchemy-stubs
diff --git a/sql/clusters.dot b/sql/clusters.dot
--- a/sql/clusters.dot
+++ b/sql/clusters.dot
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 	style = rounded;
 	bgcolor = gray95;
 	color = gray;
-	
+
 	subgraph cluster_meta {
 		label = <<b>schema versioning</b><br /> version: @@VERSION@@>;
 		dbversion;
diff --git a/sql/upgrades/032.sql b/sql/upgrades/032.sql
--- a/sql/upgrades/032.sql
+++ b/sql/upgrades/032.sql
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 -- SWH DB schema upgrade
 -- from_version: 30
 -- to_version: 32
--- description: Reading data improvment on directory and release data.
+-- description: Reading data improvement on directory and release data.
 
 insert into dbversion(version, release, description)
       values(32, now(), 'Work In Progress');
diff --git a/sql/upgrades/049.sql b/sql/upgrades/049.sql
--- a/sql/upgrades/049.sql
+++ b/sql/upgrades/049.sql
@@ -83,7 +83,7 @@
       and (select visit from origin_visit
            where origin = origin_id
            order by date desc
-           limit 1) = any(visits); 
+           limit 1) = any(visits);
 $$;
 
 create or replace function update_occurrence() returns void
diff --git a/sql/upgrades/137.sql b/sql/upgrades/137.sql
--- a/sql/upgrades/137.sql
+++ b/sql/upgrades/137.sql
@@ -89,7 +89,7 @@
 comment on column person.fullname is 'Full name (raw name)';
 
 -- comment for columns of revision
-comment on table revision is 'Revision represents the state of a source code tree at a 
+comment on table revision is 'Revision represents the state of a source code tree at a
  specific point in time';
 comment on column revision.id is 'Git id of sha1 checksum';
 comment on column revision.date is 'Timestamp when revision was authored';
diff --git a/swh/storage/sql/30-swh-schema.sql b/swh/storage/sql/30-swh-schema.sql
--- a/swh/storage/sql/30-swh-schema.sql
+++ b/swh/storage/sql/30-swh-schema.sql
@@ -239,7 +239,7 @@
   committer_date_neg_utc_offset boolean
 );
 
-comment on table revision is 'Revision represents the state of a source code tree at a 
+comment on table revision is 'Revision represents the state of a source code tree at a
  specific point in time';
 comment on column revision.id is 'Git id of sha1 checksum';
 comment on column revision.date is 'Timestamp when revision was authored';
diff --git a/swh/storage/sql/40-swh-func.sql b/swh/storage/sql/40-swh-func.sql
--- a/swh/storage/sql/40-swh-func.sql
+++ b/swh/storage/sql/40-swh-func.sql
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
 -- TBLNAME
 --
 -- Args:
---     tblname: name of the table to mimick
+--     tblname: name of the table to mimic
 create or replace function swh_mktemp(tblname regclass)
     returns void
     language plpgsql
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@
 -- This is used to create the tmp_directory_entry_<foo> tables.
 --
 -- Args:
---     tblname: name of the table to mimick
+--     tblname: name of the table to mimic
 create or replace function swh_mktemp_dir_entry(tblname regclass)
     returns void
     language plpgsql
diff --git a/swh/storage/tests/conftest.py b/swh/storage/tests/conftest.py
--- a/swh/storage/tests/conftest.py
+++ b/swh/storage/tests/conftest.py
@@ -118,7 +118,7 @@
 
 
 # This version of the DatabaseJanitor implement a different setup/teardown
-# behavior than than the stock one: instead of droping, creating and
+# behavior than than the stock one: instead of dropping, creating and
 # initializing the database for each test, it create and initialize the db only
 # once, then it truncate the tables. This is needed to have acceptable test
 # performances.