auto-sign-off - almost identical to the sample commit-msg hook from git, only adding a newline between the commit message and the sign-off

commit-msg

#!/usr/bin/sh
# 
# An example hook script to check the commit log message.
# Called by "git commit" with one argument, the name of the file
# that has the commit message.  The hook should exit with non-zero
# status after issuing an appropriate message if it wants to stop the
# commit.  The hook is allowed to edit the commit message file.
#
# To enable this hook, rename this file to "commit-msg".

# Uncomment the below to add a Signed-off-by line to the message.
# Doing this in a hook is a bad idea in general, but the prepare-commit-msg
# hook is more suited to it.
#

SOB=$(git var GIT_AUTHOR_IDENT | sed -n 's/^\(.*>\).*$/Signed-off-by: \1/p')
grep -qs "^$SOB" "$1" || echo -e "\n$SOB" >> "$1"

# This example catches duplicate Signed-off-by lines.

test "" = "$(grep '^Signed-off-by: ' "$1" |
         sort | uniq -c | sed -e '/^[   ]*1[    ]/d')" || {
        echo >&2 Duplicate Signed-off-by lines.
        exit 1
}