git-clone

GIT-CLONE(1)                      Git Manual                      GIT-CLONE(1)

NAME
       git-clone - Clone a repository into a new directory

SYNOPSIS
       git clone [--template=<template_directory>]
                 [-l] [-s] [--no-hardlinks] [-q] [-n] [--bare] [--mirror]
                 [-o <name>] [-b <name>] [-u <upload-pack>] [--reference <repository>]
                 [--dissociate] [--separate-git-dir <git dir>]
                 [--depth <depth>] [--[no-]single-branch] [--no-tags]
                 [--recurse-submodules[=<pathspec>]] [--[no-]shallow-submodules]
                 [--[no-]remote-submodules] [--jobs <n>] [--sparse] [--] <repository>
                 [<directory>]

DESCRIPTION
       Clones a repository into a newly created directory, creates
       remote-tracking branches for each branch in the cloned repository
       (visible using git branch --remotes), and creates and checks out an
       initial branch that is forked from the cloned repository's currently
       active branch.

       After the clone, a plain git fetch without arguments will update all
       the remote-tracking branches, and a git pull without arguments will in
       addition merge the remote master branch into the current master branch,
       if any (this is untrue when "--single-branch" is given; see below).

       This default configuration is achieved by creating references to the
       remote branch heads under refs/remotes/origin and by initializing
       remote.origin.url and remote.origin.fetch configuration variables.

OPTIONS
       -l, --local
           When the repository to clone from is on a local machine, this flag
           bypasses the normal "Git aware" transport mechanism and clones the
           repository by making a copy of HEAD and everything under objects
           and refs directories. The files under .git/objects/ directory are
           hardlinked to save space when possible.

           If the repository is specified as a local path (e.g.,
           /path/to/repo), this is the default, and --local is essentially a
           no-op. If the repository is specified as a URL, then this flag is
           ignored (and we never use the local optimizations). Specifying
           --no-local will override the default when /path/to/repo is given,
           using the regular Git transport instead.

       --no-hardlinks
           Force the cloning process from a repository on a local filesystem
           to copy the files under the .git/objects directory instead of using
           hardlinks. This may be desirable if you are trying to make a
           back-up of your repository.

       -s, --shared
           When the repository to clone is on the local machine, instead of
           using hard links, automatically setup .git/objects/info/alternates
           to share the objects with the source repository. The resulting
           repository starts out without any object of its own.

           NOTE: this is a possibly dangerous operation; do not use it unless
           you understand what it does. If you clone your repository using
           this option and then delete branches (or use any other Git command
           that makes any existing commit unreferenced) in the source
           repository, some objects may become unreferenced (or dangling).
           These objects may be removed by normal Git operations (such as git
           commit) which automatically call git gc --auto. (See git-gc(1).) If
           these objects are removed and were referenced by the cloned
           repository, then the cloned repository will become corrupt.

           Note that running git repack without the --local option in a
           repository cloned with --shared will copy objects from the source
           repository into a pack in the cloned repository, removing the disk
           space savings of clone --shared. It is safe, however, to run git
           gc, which uses the --local option by default.

           If you want to break the dependency of a repository cloned with
           --shared on its source repository, you can simply run git repack -a
           to copy all objects from the source repository into a pack in the
           cloned repository.

       --reference[-if-able] <repository>
           If the reference repository is on the local machine, automatically
           setup .git/objects/info/alternates to obtain objects from the
           reference repository. Using an already existing repository as an
           alternate will require fewer objects to be copied from the
           repository being cloned, reducing network and local storage costs.
           When using the --reference-if-able, a non existing directory is
           skipped with a warning instead of aborting the clone.

           NOTE: see the NOTE for the --shared option, and also the
           --dissociate option.

       --dissociate
           Borrow the objects from reference repositories specified with the
           --reference options only to reduce network transfer, and stop
           borrowing from them after a clone is made by making necessary local
           copies of borrowed objects. This option can also be used when
           cloning locally from a repository that already borrows objects from
           another repository--the new repository will borrow objects from the
           same repository, and this option can be used to stop the borrowing.

       -q, --quiet
           Operate quietly. Progress is not reported to the standard error
           stream.

       -v, --verbose
           Run verbosely. Does not affect the reporting of progress status to
           the standard error stream.

       --progress
           Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default
           when it is attached to a terminal, unless --quiet is specified.
           This flag forces progress status even if the standard error stream
           is not directed to a terminal.

       --server-option=<option>
           Transmit the given string to the server when communicating using
           protocol version 2. The given string must not contain a NUL or LF
           character. The server's handling of server options, including
           unknown ones, is server-specific. When multiple
           --server-option=<option> are given, they are all sent to the other
           side in the order listed on the command line.

       -n, --no-checkout
           No checkout of HEAD is performed after the clone is complete.

       --bare
           Make a bare Git repository. That is, instead of creating
           <directory> and placing the administrative files in
           <directory>/.git, make the <directory> itself the $GIT_DIR. This
           obviously implies the --no-checkout because there is nowhere to
           check out the working tree. Also the branch heads at the remote are
           copied directly to corresponding local branch heads, without
           mapping them to refs/remotes/origin/. When this option is used,
           neither remote-tracking branches nor the related configuration
           variables are created.

       --sparse
           Initialize the sparse-checkout file so the working directory starts
           with only the files in the root of the repository. The
           sparse-checkout file can be modified to grow the working directory
           as needed.

       --mirror
           Set up a mirror of the source repository. This implies --bare.
           Compared to --bare, --mirror not only maps local branches of the
           source to local branches of the target, it maps all refs (including
           remote-tracking branches, notes etc.) and sets up a refspec
           configuration such that all these refs are overwritten by a git
           remote update in the target repository.

       -o <name>, --origin <name>
           Instead of using the remote name origin to keep track of the
           upstream repository, use <name>.

       -b <name>, --branch <name>
           Instead of pointing the newly created HEAD to the branch pointed to
           by the cloned repository's HEAD, point to <name> branch instead. In
           a non-bare repository, this is the branch that will be checked out.
           --branch can also take tags and detaches the HEAD at that commit in
           the resulting repository.

       -u <upload-pack>, --upload-pack <upload-pack>
           When given, and the repository to clone from is accessed via ssh,
           this specifies a non-default path for the command run on the other
           end.

       --template=<template_directory>
           Specify the directory from which templates will be used; (See the
           "TEMPLATE DIRECTORY" section of git-init(1).)

       -c <key>=<value>, --config <key>=<value>
           Set a configuration variable in the newly-created repository; this
           takes effect immediately after the repository is initialized, but
           before the remote history is fetched or any files checked out. The
           key is in the same format as expected by git-config(1) (e.g.,
           core.eol=true). If multiple values are given for the same key, each
           value will be written to the config file. This makes it safe, for
           example, to add additional fetch refspecs to the origin remote.

           Due to limitations of the current implementation, some
           configuration variables do not take effect until after the initial
           fetch and checkout. Configuration variables known to not take
           effect are: remote.<name>.mirror and remote.<name>.tagOpt. Use the
           corresponding --mirror and --no-tags options instead.

       --depth <depth>
           Create a shallow clone with a history truncated to the specified
           number of commits. Implies --single-branch unless
           --no-single-branch is given to fetch the histories near the tips of
           all branches. If you want to clone submodules shallowly, also pass
           --shallow-submodules.

       --shallow-since=<date>
           Create a shallow clone with a history after the specified time.

       --shallow-exclude=<revision>
           Create a shallow clone with a history, excluding commits reachable
           from a specified remote branch or tag. This option can be specified
           multiple times.

       --[no-]single-branch
           Clone only the history leading to the tip of a single branch,
           either specified by the --branch option or the primary branch
           remote's HEAD points at. Further fetches into the resulting
           repository will only update the remote-tracking branch for the
           branch this option was used for the initial cloning. If the HEAD at
           the remote did not point at any branch when --single-branch clone
           was made, no remote-tracking branch is created.

       --no-tags
           Don't clone any tags, and set remote.<remote>.tagOpt=--no-tags in
           the config, ensuring that future git pull and git fetch operations
           won't follow any tags. Subsequent explicit tag fetches will still
           work, (see git-fetch(1)).

           Can be used in conjunction with --single-branch to clone and
           maintain a branch with no references other than a single cloned
           branch. This is useful e.g. to maintain minimal clones of the
           default branch of some repository for search indexing.

       --recurse-submodules[=<pathspec]
           After the clone is created, initialize and clone submodules within
           based on the provided pathspec. If no pathspec is provided, all
           submodules are initialized and cloned. This option can be given
           multiple times for pathspecs consisting of multiple entries. The
           resulting clone has submodule.active set to the provided pathspec,
           or "." (meaning all submodules) if no pathspec is provided.

           Submodules are initialized and cloned using their default settings.
           This is equivalent to running git submodule update --init
           --recursive <pathspec> immediately after the clone is finished.
           This option is ignored if the cloned repository does not have a
           worktree/checkout (i.e. if any of --no-checkout/-n, --bare, or
           --mirror is given)

       --[no-]shallow-submodules
           All submodules which are cloned will be shallow with a depth of 1.

       --[no-]remote-submodules
           All submodules which are cloned will use the status of the
           submodule's remote-tracking branch to update the submodule, rather
           than the superproject's recorded SHA-1. Equivalent to passing
           --remote to git submodule update.

       --separate-git-dir=<git dir>
           Instead of placing the cloned repository where it is supposed to
           be, place the cloned repository at the specified directory, then
           make a filesystem-agnostic Git symbolic link to there. The result
           is Git repository can be separated from working tree.

       -j <n>, --jobs <n>
           The number of submodules fetched at the same time. Defaults to the
           submodule.fetchJobs option.

       <repository>
           The (possibly remote) repository to clone from. See the GIT URLS
           section below for more information on specifying repositories.

       <directory>
           The name of a new directory to clone into. The "humanish" part of
           the source repository is used if no directory is explicitly given
           (repo for /path/to/repo.git and foo for host.xz:foo/.git). Cloning
           into an existing directory is only allowed if the directory is
           empty.

GIT URLS
       In general, URLs contain information about the transport protocol, the
       address of the remote server, and the path to the repository. Depending
       on the transport protocol, some of this information may be absent.

       Git supports ssh, git, http, and https protocols (in addition, ftp, and
       ftps can be used for fetching, but this is inefficient and deprecated;
       do not use it).

       The native transport (i.e. git:// URL) does no authentication and
       should be used with caution on unsecured networks.

       The following syntaxes may be used with them:

       o   ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/

       o   git://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/

       o   http[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/

       o   ftp[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/

       An alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:

       o   [user@]host.xz:path/to/repo.git/

       This syntax is only recognized if there are no slashes before the first
       colon. This helps differentiate a local path that contains a colon. For
       example the local path foo:bar could be specified as an absolute path
       or ./foo:bar to avoid being misinterpreted as an ssh url.

       The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~username expansion:

       o   ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/

       o   git://host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/

       o   [user@]host.xz:/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/

       For local repositories, also supported by Git natively, the following
       syntaxes may be used:

       o   /path/to/repo.git/

       o   file:///path/to/repo.git/

       These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except the former implies
       --local option.

       git clone, git fetch and git pull, but not git push, will also accept a
       suitable bundle file. See git-bundle(1).

       When Git doesn't know how to handle a certain transport protocol, it
       attempts to use the remote-<transport> remote helper, if one exists. To
       explicitly request a remote helper, the following syntax may be used:

       o   <transport>::<address>

       where <address> may be a path, a server and path, or an arbitrary
       URL-like string recognized by the specific remote helper being invoked.
       See gitremote-helpers(7) for details.

       If there are a large number of similarly-named remote repositories and
       you want to use a different format for them (such that the URLs you use
       will be rewritten into URLs that work), you can create a configuration
       section of the form:

                   [url "<actual url base>"]
                           insteadOf = <other url base>

       For example, with this:

                   [url "git://git.host.xz/"]
                           insteadOf = host.xz:/path/to/
                           insteadOf = work:

       a URL like "work:repo.git" or like "host.xz:/path/to/repo.git" will be
       rewritten in any context that takes a URL to be
       "git://git.host.xz/repo.git".

       If you want to rewrite URLs for push only, you can create a
       configuration section of the form:

                   [url "<actual url base>"]
                           pushInsteadOf = <other url base>

       For example, with this:

                   [url "ssh://example.org/"]
                           pushInsteadOf = git://example.org/

       a URL like "git://example.org/path/to/repo.git" will be rewritten to
       "ssh://example.org/path/to/repo.git" for pushes, but pulls will still
       use the original URL.

EXAMPLES
       o   Clone from upstream:

               $ git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../linux.git my-linux
               $ cd my-linux
               $ make

       o   Make a local clone that borrows from the current directory, without
           checking things out:

               $ git clone -l -s -n . ../copy
               $ cd ../copy
               $ git show-branch

       o   Clone from upstream while borrowing from an existing local
           directory:

               $ git clone --reference /git/linux.git \
                       git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../linux.git \
                       my-linux
               $ cd my-linux

       o   Create a bare repository to publish your changes to the public:

               $ git clone --bare -l /home/proj/.git /pub/scm/proj.git

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.25.1                        04/26/2023                      GIT-CLONE(1)