I think the whole world would benefit if we’d make it so that code formatting happened separately from what was committed. Then everyone could have their local checkouts formatted the way they wanted and there would be nothing to argue about in terms of coding style.

Why though? It seems like an elaborate technical solution just to avoid someone making a decision on fruitless bike-shedding discussions. It will only work for white space formatting not for other conventions prone to bikeshedding like naming/casing conventions.

Just make decision and get on with your lives. Have some kind of linter check for inconsistencies before any human review.

If an organization cannot make a decision on inconsequential bike-shedding it is dysfunctional.

After pre-commit linting, you get post-pull linting... If you kept the code in a RAM drive this might even be quick. 8)

Smart tabs is halfway there.

This would be my number one wish for tooling.