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

6       git-clone - Clone a repository into a new directory
7

SYNOPSIS

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]
16                 [--filter=<filter>] [--] <repository>
17                 [<directory>]
18

DESCRIPTION

20       Clones a repository into a newly created directory, creates
21       remote-tracking branches for each branch in the cloned repository
22       (visible using git branch --remotes), and creates and checks out an
23       initial branch that is forked from the cloned repository’s currently
24       active branch.
25
26       After the clone, a plain git fetch without arguments will update all
27       the remote-tracking branches, and a git pull without arguments will in
28       addition merge the remote master branch into the current master branch,
29       if any (this is untrue when "--single-branch" is given; see below).
30
31       This default configuration is achieved by creating references to the
32       remote branch heads under refs/remotes/origin and by initializing
33       remote.origin.url and remote.origin.fetch configuration variables.
34

OPTIONS

36       -l, --local
37           When the repository to clone from is on a local machine, this flag
38           bypasses the normal "Git aware" transport mechanism and clones the
39           repository by making a copy of HEAD and everything under objects
40           and refs directories. The files under .git/objects/ directory are
41           hardlinked to save space when possible.
42
43           If the repository is specified as a local path (e.g.,
44           /path/to/repo), this is the default, and --local is essentially a
45           no-op. If the repository is specified as a URL, then this flag is
46           ignored (and we never use the local optimizations). Specifying
47           --no-local will override the default when /path/to/repo is given,
48           using the regular Git transport instead.
49
50           NOTE: this operation can race with concurrent modification to the
51           source repository, similar to running cp -r src dst while modifying
52           src.
53
54       --no-hardlinks
55           Force the cloning process from a repository on a local filesystem
56           to copy the files under the .git/objects directory instead of using
57           hardlinks. This may be desirable if you are trying to make a
58           back-up of your repository.
59
60       -s, --shared
61           When the repository to clone is on the local machine, instead of
62           using hard links, automatically setup .git/objects/info/alternates
63           to share the objects with the source repository. The resulting
64           repository starts out without any object of its own.
65
66           NOTE: this is a possibly dangerous operation; do not use it unless
67           you understand what it does. If you clone your repository using
68           this option and then delete branches (or use any other Git command
69           that makes any existing commit unreferenced) in the source
70           repository, some objects may become unreferenced (or dangling).
71           These objects may be removed by normal Git operations (such as git
72           commit) which automatically call git maintenance run --auto. (See
73           git-maintenance(1).) If these objects are removed and were
74           referenced by the cloned repository, then the cloned repository
75           will become corrupt.
76
77           Note that running git repack without the --local option in a
78           repository cloned with --shared will copy objects from the source
79           repository into a pack in the cloned repository, removing the disk
80           space savings of clone --shared. It is safe, however, to run git
81           gc, which uses the --local option by default.
82
83           If you want to break the dependency of a repository cloned with
84           --shared on its source repository, you can simply run git repack -a
85           to copy all objects from the source repository into a pack in the
86           cloned repository.
87
88       --reference[-if-able] <repository>
89           If the reference repository is on the local machine, automatically
90           setup .git/objects/info/alternates to obtain objects from the
91           reference repository. Using an already existing repository as an
92           alternate will require fewer objects to be copied from the
93           repository being cloned, reducing network and local storage costs.
94           When using the --reference-if-able, a non existing directory is
95           skipped with a warning instead of aborting the clone.
96
97           NOTE: see the NOTE for the --shared option, and also the
98           --dissociate option.
99
100       --dissociate
101           Borrow the objects from reference repositories specified with the
102           --reference options only to reduce network transfer, and stop
103           borrowing from them after a clone is made by making necessary local
104           copies of borrowed objects. This option can also be used when
105           cloning locally from a repository that already borrows objects from
106           another repository—the new repository will borrow objects from the
107           same repository, and this option can be used to stop the borrowing.
108
109       -q, --quiet
110           Operate quietly. Progress is not reported to the standard error
111           stream.
112
113       -v, --verbose
114           Run verbosely. Does not affect the reporting of progress status to
115           the standard error stream.
116
117       --progress
118           Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default
119           when it is attached to a terminal, unless --quiet is specified.
120           This flag forces progress status even if the standard error stream
121           is not directed to a terminal.
122
123       --server-option=<option>
124           Transmit the given string to the server when communicating using
125           protocol version 2. The given string must not contain a NUL or LF
126           character. The server’s handling of server options, including
127           unknown ones, is server-specific. When multiple
128           --server-option=<option> are given, they are all sent to the other
129           side in the order listed on the command line.
130
131       -n, --no-checkout
132           No checkout of HEAD is performed after the clone is complete.
133
134       --bare
135           Make a bare Git repository. That is, instead of creating
136           <directory> and placing the administrative files in
137           <directory>/.git, make the <directory> itself the $GIT_DIR. This
138           obviously implies the --no-checkout because there is nowhere to
139           check out the working tree. Also the branch heads at the remote are
140           copied directly to corresponding local branch heads, without
141           mapping them to refs/remotes/origin/. When this option is used,
142           neither remote-tracking branches nor the related configuration
143           variables are created.
144
145       --sparse
146           Initialize the sparse-checkout file so the working directory starts
147           with only the files in the root of the repository. The
148           sparse-checkout file can be modified to grow the working directory
149           as needed.
150
151       --filter=<filter-spec>
152           Use the partial clone feature and request that the server sends a
153           subset of reachable objects according to a given object filter.
154           When using --filter, the supplied <filter-spec> is used for the
155           partial clone filter. For example, --filter=blob:none will filter
156           out all blobs (file contents) until needed by Git. Also,
157           --filter=blob:limit=<size> will filter out all blobs of size at
158           least <size>. For more details on filter specifications, see the
159           --filter option in git-rev-list(1).
160
161       --mirror
162           Set up a mirror of the source repository. This implies --bare.
163           Compared to --bare, --mirror not only maps local branches of the
164           source to local branches of the target, it maps all refs (including
165           remote-tracking branches, notes etc.) and sets up a refspec
166           configuration such that all these refs are overwritten by a git
167           remote update in the target repository.
168
169       -o <name>, --origin <name>
170           Instead of using the remote name origin to keep track of the
171           upstream repository, use <name>. Overrides clone.defaultRemoteName
172           from the config.
173
174       -b <name>, --branch <name>
175           Instead of pointing the newly created HEAD to the branch pointed to
176           by the cloned repository’s HEAD, point to <name> branch instead. In
177           a non-bare repository, this is the branch that will be checked out.
178           --branch can also take tags and detaches the HEAD at that commit in
179           the resulting repository.
180
181       -u <upload-pack>, --upload-pack <upload-pack>
182           When given, and the repository to clone from is accessed via ssh,
183           this specifies a non-default path for the command run on the other
184           end.
185
186       --template=<template_directory>
187           Specify the directory from which templates will be used; (See the
188           "TEMPLATE DIRECTORY" section of git-init(1).)
189
190       -c <key>=<value>, --config <key>=<value>
191           Set a configuration variable in the newly-created repository; this
192           takes effect immediately after the repository is initialized, but
193           before the remote history is fetched or any files checked out. The
194           key is in the same format as expected by git-config(1) (e.g.,
195           core.eol=true). If multiple values are given for the same key, each
196           value will be written to the config file. This makes it safe, for
197           example, to add additional fetch refspecs to the origin remote.
198
199           Due to limitations of the current implementation, some
200           configuration variables do not take effect until after the initial
201           fetch and checkout. Configuration variables known to not take
202           effect are: remote.<name>.mirror and remote.<name>.tagOpt. Use the
203           corresponding --mirror and --no-tags options instead.
204
205       --depth <depth>
206           Create a shallow clone with a history truncated to the specified
207           number of commits. Implies --single-branch unless
208           --no-single-branch is given to fetch the histories near the tips of
209           all branches. If you want to clone submodules shallowly, also pass
210           --shallow-submodules.
211
212       --shallow-since=<date>
213           Create a shallow clone with a history after the specified time.
214
215       --shallow-exclude=<revision>
216           Create a shallow clone with a history, excluding commits reachable
217           from a specified remote branch or tag. This option can be specified
218           multiple times.
219
220       --[no-]single-branch
221           Clone only the history leading to the tip of a single branch,
222           either specified by the --branch option or the primary branch
223           remote’s HEAD points at. Further fetches into the resulting
224           repository will only update the remote-tracking branch for the
225           branch this option was used for the initial cloning. If the HEAD at
226           the remote did not point at any branch when --single-branch clone
227           was made, no remote-tracking branch is created.
228
229       --no-tags
230           Don’t clone any tags, and set remote.<remote>.tagOpt=--no-tags in
231           the config, ensuring that future git pull and git fetch operations
232           won’t follow any tags. Subsequent explicit tag fetches will still
233           work, (see git-fetch(1)).
234
235           Can be used in conjunction with --single-branch to clone and
236           maintain a branch with no references other than a single cloned
237           branch. This is useful e.g. to maintain minimal clones of the
238           default branch of some repository for search indexing.
239
240       --recurse-submodules[=<pathspec>]
241           After the clone is created, initialize and clone submodules within
242           based on the provided pathspec. If no pathspec is provided, all
243           submodules are initialized and cloned. This option can be given
244           multiple times for pathspecs consisting of multiple entries. The
245           resulting clone has submodule.active set to the provided pathspec,
246           or "." (meaning all submodules) if no pathspec is provided.
247
248           Submodules are initialized and cloned using their default settings.
249           This is equivalent to running git submodule update --init
250           --recursive <pathspec> immediately after the clone is finished.
251           This option is ignored if the cloned repository does not have a
252           worktree/checkout (i.e. if any of --no-checkout/-n, --bare, or
253           --mirror is given)
254
255       --[no-]shallow-submodules
256           All submodules which are cloned will be shallow with a depth of 1.
257
258       --[no-]remote-submodules
259           All submodules which are cloned will use the status of the
260           submodule’s remote-tracking branch to update the submodule, rather
261           than the superproject’s recorded SHA-1. Equivalent to passing
262           --remote to git submodule update.
263
264       --separate-git-dir=<git dir>
265           Instead of placing the cloned repository where it is supposed to
266           be, place the cloned repository at the specified directory, then
267           make a filesystem-agnostic Git symbolic link to there. The result
268           is Git repository can be separated from working tree.
269
270       -j <n>, --jobs <n>
271           The number of submodules fetched at the same time. Defaults to the
272           submodule.fetchJobs option.
273
274       <repository>
275           The (possibly remote) repository to clone from. See the GIT URLS
276           section below for more information on specifying repositories.
277
278       <directory>
279           The name of a new directory to clone into. The "humanish" part of
280           the source repository is used if no directory is explicitly given
281           (repo for /path/to/repo.git and foo for host.xz:foo/.git). Cloning
282           into an existing directory is only allowed if the directory is
283           empty.
284

GIT URLS

286       In general, URLs contain information about the transport protocol, the
287       address of the remote server, and the path to the repository. Depending
288       on the transport protocol, some of this information may be absent.
289
290       Git supports ssh, git, http, and https protocols (in addition, ftp, and
291       ftps can be used for fetching, but this is inefficient and deprecated;
292       do not use it).
293
294       The native transport (i.e. git:// URL) does no authentication and
295       should be used with caution on unsecured networks.
296
297       The following syntaxes may be used with them:
298
299       •   ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
300
301       •   git://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
302
303       •   http[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
304
305       •   ftp[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
306
307       An alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:
308
309       •   [user@]host.xz:path/to/repo.git/
310
311       This syntax is only recognized if there are no slashes before the first
312       colon. This helps differentiate a local path that contains a colon. For
313       example the local path foo:bar could be specified as an absolute path
314       or ./foo:bar to avoid being misinterpreted as an ssh url.
315
316       The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~username expansion:
317
318       •   ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
319
320       •   git://host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
321
322       •   [user@]host.xz:/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
323
324       For local repositories, also supported by Git natively, the following
325       syntaxes may be used:
326
327       •   /path/to/repo.git/
328
329       •   file:///path/to/repo.git/
330
331       These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except the former implies
332       --local option.
333
334       git clone, git fetch and git pull, but not git push, will also accept a
335       suitable bundle file. See git-bundle(1).
336
337       When Git doesn’t know how to handle a certain transport protocol, it
338       attempts to use the remote-<transport> remote helper, if one exists. To
339       explicitly request a remote helper, the following syntax may be used:
340
341       •   <transport>::<address>
342
343       where <address> may be a path, a server and path, or an arbitrary
344       URL-like string recognized by the specific remote helper being invoked.
345       See gitremote-helpers(7) for details.
346
347       If there are a large number of similarly-named remote repositories and
348       you want to use a different format for them (such that the URLs you use
349       will be rewritten into URLs that work), you can create a configuration
350       section of the form:
351
352                   [url "<actual url base>"]
353                           insteadOf = <other url base>
354
355       For example, with this:
356
357                   [url "git://git.host.xz/"]
358                           insteadOf = host.xz:/path/to/
359                           insteadOf = work:
360
361       a URL like "work:repo.git" or like "host.xz:/path/to/repo.git" will be
362       rewritten in any context that takes a URL to be
363       "git://git.host.xz/repo.git".
364
365       If you want to rewrite URLs for push only, you can create a
366       configuration section of the form:
367
368                   [url "<actual url base>"]
369                           pushInsteadOf = <other url base>
370
371       For example, with this:
372
373                   [url "ssh://example.org/"]
374                           pushInsteadOf = git://example.org/
375
376       a URL like "git://example.org/path/to/repo.git" will be rewritten to
377       "ssh://example.org/path/to/repo.git" for pushes, but pulls will still
378       use the original URL.
379

EXAMPLES

381       •   Clone from upstream:
382
383               $ git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../linux.git my-linux
384               $ cd my-linux
385               $ make
386
387       •   Make a local clone that borrows from the current directory, without
388           checking things out:
389
390               $ git clone -l -s -n . ../copy
391               $ cd ../copy
392               $ git show-branch
393
394       •   Clone from upstream while borrowing from an existing local
395           directory:
396
397               $ git clone --reference /git/linux.git \
398                       git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../linux.git \
399                       my-linux
400               $ cd my-linux
401
402       •   Create a bare repository to publish your changes to the public:
403
404               $ git clone --bare -l /home/proj/.git /pub/scm/proj.git
405

GIT

407       Part of the git(1) suite
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409
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411Git 2.31.1                        2021-03-26                      GIT-CLONE(1)
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