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.

           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.

       -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=<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.

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

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

           •   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:

       •   ssh://[<user>@]<host>[:<port>]/<path-to-git-repo>

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

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

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

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

       •   [<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:

       •   ssh://[<user>@]<host>[:<port>]/~<user>/<path-to-git-repo>

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

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

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

       •   /path/to/repo.git/

       •   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:

       •   <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

       •   Clone from upstream:

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

       •   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

       •   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

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

               $ git clone --bare -l /home/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.

       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