Is there a way to run the changed files through a filter before doing the commit? I wish to make sure the files follows the coding standards for the project.
I would also like to compile and run some test before the commit/push actually takes place, so I know everything in the repo actually works.
Pre-commit hooks. Read up on git hooks. The Git Book has an example of how to write a Ruby script to run RSpec tests, for instance.
You just save the executable as .git/hooks/pre-commit – using a hashbang to specify the language. It is just an ordinary shell script, although you can use any scripting language, so long as it returns 1 if there is a problem and 0 if there isn’t.