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] [--[no-]reject-shallow]
[--filter=<filter-spec>] [--also-filter-submodules]] [--] <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.

If the repository's $GIT_DIR/objects has symbolic links or is a
symbolic link, the clone will fail. This is a security measure to
prevent the unintentional copying of files by dereferencing the
symbolic links.

This option does not work with repositories owned by other users
for security reasons, and --no-local must be specified for the
clone to succeed.

NOTE: this operation can race with concurrent modification to the
source repository, similar to running cp -r <src> <dst> while
modifying <src>.

--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 maintenance run
--auto. (See git-maintenance(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. When no
--server-option=<option> is given from the command line, the
values of configuration variable remote.<name>.serverOption are
used instead.

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

--[no-]reject-shallow
Fail if the source repository is a shallow repository. The
clone.rejectShallow configuration variable can be used to specify
the default.

--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
Employ a sparse-checkout, with only files in the toplevel
directory initially being present. The git-sparse-checkout(1)
command can be used to grow the working directory as needed.

--filter=<filter-spec>
Use the partial clone feature and request that the server sends a
subset of reachable objects according to a given object filter.
When using --filter, the supplied <filter-spec> is used for the
partial clone filter. For example, --filter=blob:none will filter
out all blobs (file contents) until needed by Git. Also,
--filter=blob:limit=<size> will filter out all blobs of size at
least <size>. For more details on filter specifications, see the
--filter option in git-rev-list(1).

--also-filter-submodules
Also apply the partial clone filter to any submodules in the
repository. Requires --filter and --recurse-submodules. This can
be turned on by default by setting the clone.filterSubmodules
config option.

--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>. Overrides
clone.defaultRemoteName from the config.

-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=<ref>
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.

--ref-format=<ref-format>
Specify the given ref storage format for the repository. The
valid values are:

+o files for loose files with packed-refs. This is the default.

+o reftable for the reftable format. This format is experimental
and its internals are subject to change.

-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.

--bundle-uri=<uri>
Before fetching from the remote, fetch a bundle from the given
<uri> and unbundle the data into the local repository. The refs
in the bundle will be stored under the hidden refs/bundle/*
namespace. This option is incompatible with --depth,
--shallow-since, and --shallow-exclude.

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 them).

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>[:<port>]/<path-to-git-repo>

+o git://<host>[:<port>]/<path-to-git-repo>

+o http[s]://<host>[:<port>]/<path-to-git-repo>

+o ftp[s]://<host>[:<port>]/<path-to-git-repo>

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

+o [<user>@]<host>:/<path-to-git-repo>

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>[:<port>]/~<user>/<path-to-git-repo>

+o git://<host>[:<port>]/~<user>/<path-to-git-repo>

+o [<user>@]<host>:~<user>/<path-to-git-repo>

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

+o Clone a local repository from a different user:

$ git clone --no-local /home/otheruser/proj.git /pub/scm/proj.git

CONFIGURATION

Everything below this line in this section is selectively included
from the git-config(1) documentation. The content is the same as
what's found there:

init.templateDir
Specify the directory from which templates will be copied. (See
the "TEMPLATE DIRECTORY" section of git-init(1).)

init.defaultBranch
Allows overriding the default branch name e.g. when initializing
a new repository.

init.defaultObjectFormat
Allows overriding the default object format for new repositories.
See --object-format= in git-init(1). Both the command line option
and the GIT_DEFAULT_HASH environment variable take precedence
over this config.

init.defaultRefFormat
Allows overriding the default ref storage format for new
repositories. See --ref-format= in git-init(1). Both the command
line option and the GIT_DEFAULT_REF_FORMAT environment variable
take precedence over this config.

clone.defaultRemoteName
The name of the remote to create when cloning a repository.
Defaults to origin. It can be overridden by passing the --origin
command-line option.

clone.rejectShallow
Reject cloning a repository if it is a shallow one; this can be
overridden by passing the --reject-shallow option on the command
line.

clone.filterSubmodules
If a partial clone filter is provided (see --filter in git-rev-
list(1)) and --recurse-submodules is used, also apply the filter
to submodules.

GIT

Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.48.1 2025-01-13 GIT-CLONE(1)