I've recently installed husky v6 - and I love it. But sometimes I would like to avoid running it - is there some argument that provides an escape hatch?
Yes, there is. Git offers a --no-verify option for the pre-commit hook:
This hook is invoked by git-commit[1], and can be bypassed with the --no-verify option. It takes no parameters, and is invoked before obtaining the proposed commit log message and making a commit.
Making the git commit with this flag enabled disables husky.