1GIT-CLONE(1) Git Manual GIT-CLONE(1)
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6 git-clone - Clone a repository into a new directory
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9 git clone [--template=<template_directory>]
10 [-l] [-s] [--no-hardlinks] [-q] [-n] [--bare] [--mirror]
11 [-o <name>] [-b <name>] [-u <upload-pack>] [--reference <repository>]
12 [--dissociate] [--separate-git-dir <git dir>]
13 [--depth <depth>] [--[no-]single-branch] [--no-tags]
14 [--recurse-submodules[=<pathspec>]] [--[no-]shallow-submodules]
15 [--[no-]remote-submodules] [--jobs <n>] [--sparse] [--] <repository>
16 [<directory>]
17
19 Clones a repository into a newly created directory, creates
20 remote-tracking branches for each branch in the cloned repository
21 (visible using git branch --remotes), and creates and checks out an
22 initial branch that is forked from the cloned repository’s currently
23 active branch.
24 After the clone, a plain git fetch without arguments will update all
26 the remote-tracking branches, and a git pull without arguments will in
27 addition merge the remote master branch into the current master branch,
28 if any (this is untrue when "--single-branch" is given; see below).
29 This default configuration is achieved by creating references to the
31 remote branch heads under refs/remotes/origin and by initializing
32 remote.origin.url and remote.origin.fetch configuration variables.
33
35 -l, --local
36 When the repository to clone from is on a local machine, this flag
37 bypasses the normal "Git aware" transport mechanism and clones the
38 repository by making a copy of HEAD and everything under objects
39 and refs directories. The files under .git/objects/ directory are
40 hardlinked to save space when possible.
41 If the repository is specified as a local path (e.g.,
43 /path/to/repo), this is the default, and --local is essentially a
44 no-op. If the repository is specified as a URL, then this flag is
45 ignored (and we never use the local optimizations). Specifying
46 --no-local will override the default when /path/to/repo is given,
47 using the regular Git transport instead.
48 --no-hardlinks
50 Force the cloning process from a repository on a local filesystem
51 to copy the files under the .git/objects directory instead of using
52 hardlinks. This may be desirable if you are trying to make a
53 back-up of your repository.
54 -s, --shared
56 When the repository to clone is on the local machine, instead of
57 using hard links, automatically setup .git/objects/info/alternates
58 to share the objects with the source repository. The resulting
59 repository starts out without any object of its own.
60 NOTE: this is a possibly dangerous operation; do not use it unless
62 you understand what it does. If you clone your repository using
63 this option and then delete branches (or use any other Git command
64 that makes any existing commit unreferenced) in the source
65 repository, some objects may become unreferenced (or dangling).
66 These objects may be removed by normal Git operations (such as git
67 commit) which automatically call git gc --auto. (See git-gc(1).) If
68 these objects are removed and were referenced by the cloned
69 repository, then the cloned repository will become corrupt.
70 Note that running git repack without the --local option in a
72 repository cloned with --shared will copy objects from the source
73 repository into a pack in the cloned repository, removing the disk
74 space savings of clone --shared. It is safe, however, to run git
75 gc, which uses the --local option by default.
76 If you want to break the dependency of a repository cloned with
78 --shared on its source repository, you can simply run git repack -a
79 to copy all objects from the source repository into a pack in the
80 cloned repository.
81 --reference[-if-able] <repository>
83 If the reference repository is on the local machine, automatically
84 setup .git/objects/info/alternates to obtain objects from the
85 reference repository. Using an already existing repository as an
86 alternate will require fewer objects to be copied from the
87 repository being cloned, reducing network and local storage costs.
88 When using the --reference-if-able, a non existing directory is
89 skipped with a warning instead of aborting the clone.
90 NOTE: see the NOTE for the --shared option, and also the
92 --dissociate option.
93 --dissociate
95 Borrow the objects from reference repositories specified with the
96 --reference options only to reduce network transfer, and stop
97 borrowing from them after a clone is made by making necessary local
98 copies of borrowed objects. This option can also be used when
99 cloning locally from a repository that already borrows objects from
100 another repository—the new repository will borrow objects from the
101 same repository, and this option can be used to stop the borrowing.
102 -q, --quiet
104 Operate quietly. Progress is not reported to the standard error
105 stream.
106 -v, --verbose
108 Run verbosely. Does not affect the reporting of progress status to
109 the standard error stream.
110 --progress
112 Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default
113 when it is attached to a terminal, unless --quiet is specified.
114 This flag forces progress status even if the standard error stream
115 is not directed to a terminal.
116 --server-option=<option>
118 Transmit the given string to the server when communicating using
119 protocol version 2. The given string must not contain a NUL or LF
120 character. The server’s handling of server options, including
121 unknown ones, is server-specific. When multiple
122 --server-option=<option> are given, they are all sent to the other
123 side in the order listed on the command line.
124 -n, --no-checkout
126 No checkout of HEAD is performed after the clone is complete.
127 --bare
129 Make a bare Git repository. That is, instead of creating
130 <directory> and placing the administrative files in
131 <directory>/.git, make the <directory> itself the $GIT_DIR. This
132 obviously implies the --no-checkout because there is nowhere to
133 check out the working tree. Also the branch heads at the remote are
134 copied directly to corresponding local branch heads, without
135 mapping them to refs/remotes/origin/. When this option is used,
136 neither remote-tracking branches nor the related configuration
137 variables are created.
138 --sparse
140 Initialize the sparse-checkout file so the working directory starts
141 with only the files in the root of the repository. The
142 sparse-checkout file can be modified to grow the working directory
143 as needed.
144 --mirror
146 Set up a mirror of the source repository. This implies --bare.
147 Compared to --bare, --mirror not only maps local branches of the
148 source to local branches of the target, it maps all refs (including
149 remote-tracking branches, notes etc.) and sets up a refspec
150 configuration such that all these refs are overwritten by a git
151 remote update in the target repository.
152 -o <name>, --origin <name>
154 Instead of using the remote name origin to keep track of the
155 upstream repository, use <name>.
156 -b <name>, --branch <name>
158 Instead of pointing the newly created HEAD to the branch pointed to
159 by the cloned repository’s HEAD, point to <name> branch instead. In
160 a non-bare repository, this is the branch that will be checked out.
161 --branch can also take tags and detaches the HEAD at that commit in
162 the resulting repository.
163 -u <upload-pack>, --upload-pack <upload-pack>
165 When given, and the repository to clone from is accessed via ssh,
166 this specifies a non-default path for the command run on the other
167 end.
168 --template=<template_directory>
170 Specify the directory from which templates will be used; (See the
171 "TEMPLATE DIRECTORY" section of git-init(1).)
172 -c <key>=<value>, --config <key>=<value>
174 Set a configuration variable in the newly-created repository; this
175 takes effect immediately after the repository is initialized, but
176 before the remote history is fetched or any files checked out. The
177 key is in the same format as expected by git-config(1) (e.g.,
178 core.eol=true). If multiple values are given for the same key, each
179 value will be written to the config file. This makes it safe, for
180 example, to add additional fetch refspecs to the origin remote.
181 Due to limitations of the current implementation, some
183 configuration variables do not take effect until after the initial
184 fetch and checkout. Configuration variables known to not take
185 effect are: remote.<name>.mirror and remote.<name>.tagOpt. Use the
186 corresponding --mirror and --no-tags options instead.
187 --depth <depth>
189 Create a shallow clone with a history truncated to the specified
190 number of commits. Implies --single-branch unless
191 --no-single-branch is given to fetch the histories near the tips of
192 all branches. If you want to clone submodules shallowly, also pass
193 --shallow-submodules.
194 --shallow-since=<date>
196 Create a shallow clone with a history after the specified time.
197 --shallow-exclude=<revision>
199 Create a shallow clone with a history, excluding commits reachable
200 from a specified remote branch or tag. This option can be specified
201 multiple times.
202 --[no-]single-branch
204 Clone only the history leading to the tip of a single branch,
205 either specified by the --branch option or the primary branch
206 remote’s HEAD points at. Further fetches into the resulting
207 repository will only update the remote-tracking branch for the
208 branch this option was used for the initial cloning. If the HEAD at
209 the remote did not point at any branch when --single-branch clone
210 was made, no remote-tracking branch is created.
211 --no-tags
213 Don’t clone any tags, and set remote.<remote>.tagOpt=--no-tags in
214 the config, ensuring that future git pull and git fetch operations
215 won’t follow any tags. Subsequent explicit tag fetches will still
216 work, (see git-fetch(1)).
217 Can be used in conjunction with --single-branch to clone and
219 maintain a branch with no references other than a single cloned
220 branch. This is useful e.g. to maintain minimal clones of the
221 default branch of some repository for search indexing.
222 --recurse-submodules[=<pathspec]
224 After the clone is created, initialize and clone submodules within
225 based on the provided pathspec. If no pathspec is provided, all
226 submodules are initialized and cloned. This option can be given
227 multiple times for pathspecs consisting of multiple entries. The
228 resulting clone has submodule.active set to the provided pathspec,
229 or "." (meaning all submodules) if no pathspec is provided.
230 Submodules are initialized and cloned using their default settings.
232 This is equivalent to running git submodule update --init
233 --recursive <pathspec> immediately after the clone is finished.
234 This option is ignored if the cloned repository does not have a
235 worktree/checkout (i.e. if any of --no-checkout/-n, --bare, or
236 --mirror is given)
237 --[no-]shallow-submodules
239 All submodules which are cloned will be shallow with a depth of 1.
240 --[no-]remote-submodules
242 All submodules which are cloned will use the status of the
243 submodule’s remote-tracking branch to update the submodule, rather
244 than the superproject’s recorded SHA-1. Equivalent to passing
245 --remote to git submodule update.
246 --separate-git-dir=<git dir>
248 Instead of placing the cloned repository where it is supposed to
249 be, place the cloned repository at the specified directory, then
250 make a filesystem-agnostic Git symbolic link to there. The result
251 is Git repository can be separated from working tree.
252 -j <n>, --jobs <n>
254 The number of submodules fetched at the same time. Defaults to the
255 submodule.fetchJobs option.
256 <repository>
258 The (possibly remote) repository to clone from. See the GIT URLS
259 section below for more information on specifying repositories.
260 <directory>
262 The name of a new directory to clone into. The "humanish" part of
263 the source repository is used if no directory is explicitly given
264 (repo for /path/to/repo.git and foo for host.xz:foo/.git). Cloning
265 into an existing directory is only allowed if the directory is
266 empty.
267
269 In general, URLs contain information about the transport protocol, the
270 address of the remote server, and the path to the repository. Depending
271 on the transport protocol, some of this information may be absent.
272 Git supports ssh, git, http, and https protocols (in addition, ftp, and
274 ftps can be used for fetching, but this is inefficient and deprecated;
275 do not use it).
276 The native transport (i.e. git:// URL) does no authentication and
278 should be used with caution on unsecured networks.
279 The following syntaxes may be used with them:
281 · ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
283 · git://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
285 · http[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
287 · ftp[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
289 An alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:
291 · [user@]host.xz:path/to/repo.git/
293 This syntax is only recognized if there are no slashes before the first
295 colon. This helps differentiate a local path that contains a colon. For
296 example the local path foo:bar could be specified as an absolute path
297 or ./foo:bar to avoid being misinterpreted as an ssh url.
298 The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~username expansion:
300 · ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
302 · git://host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
304 · [user@]host.xz:/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
306 For local repositories, also supported by Git natively, the following
308 syntaxes may be used:
309 · /path/to/repo.git/
311 · file:///path/to/repo.git/
313 These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except the former implies
315 --local option.
316 git clone, git fetch and git pull, but not git push, will also accept a
318 suitable bundle file. See git-bundle(1).
319 When Git doesn’t know how to handle a certain transport protocol, it
321 attempts to use the remote-<transport> remote helper, if one exists. To
322 explicitly request a remote helper, the following syntax may be used:
323 · <transport>::<address>
325 where <address> may be a path, a server and path, or an arbitrary
327 URL-like string recognized by the specific remote helper being invoked.
328 See gitremote-helpers(7) for details.
329 If there are a large number of similarly-named remote repositories and
331 you want to use a different format for them (such that the URLs you use
332 will be rewritten into URLs that work), you can create a configuration
333 section of the form:
334 [url "<actual url base>"]
336 insteadOf = <other url base>
337 For example, with this:
339 [url "git://git.host.xz/"]
341 insteadOf = host.xz:/path/to/
342 insteadOf = work:
343 a URL like "work:repo.git" or like "host.xz:/path/to/repo.git" will be
345 rewritten in any context that takes a URL to be
346 "git://git.host.xz/repo.git".
347 If you want to rewrite URLs for push only, you can create a
349 configuration section of the form:
350 [url "<actual url base>"]
352 pushInsteadOf = <other url base>
353 For example, with this:
355 [url "ssh://example.org/"]
357 pushInsteadOf = git://example.org/
358 a URL like "git://example.org/path/to/repo.git" will be rewritten to
360 "ssh://example.org/path/to/repo.git" for pushes, but pulls will still
361 use the original URL.
362
364 · Clone from upstream:
365 $ git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../linux.git my-linux
367 $ cd my-linux
368 $ make
369 · Make a local clone that borrows from the current directory, without
371 checking things out:
372 $ git clone -l -s -n . ../copy
374 $ cd ../copy
375 $ git show-branch
376 · Clone from upstream while borrowing from an existing local
378 directory:
379 $ git clone --reference /git/linux.git \
381 git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../linux.git \
382 my-linux
383 $ cd my-linux
384 · Create a bare repository to publish your changes to the public:
386 $ git clone --bare -l /home/proj/.git /pub/scm/proj.git
388
390 Part of the git(1) suite
391Git 2.26.2 2020-04-20 GIT-CLONE(1)