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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | GIT URLS | EXAMPLES | CONFIGURATION | GIT | COLOPHON |
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GIT-CLONE(1) Git Manual GIT-CLONE(1)
git-clone - Clone a repository into a new directory
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>]
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.
-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.
--revision=<rev>
Create a new repository, and fetch the history leading to the
given revision <rev> (and nothing else), without making any
remote-tracking branch, and without making any local branch,
and detach HEAD to <rev>. The argument can be a ref name (e.g.
refs/heads/main or refs/tags/v1.0) that peels down to a
commit, or a hexadecimal object name. This option is
incompatible with --branch and --mirror.
-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
Control whether or not tags will be cloned. When --no-tags is
given, the option will be become permanent by setting the
remote.<remote>.tagOpt=--no-tags configuration. This ensures
that future git pull and git fetch won’t follow any tags.
Subsequent explicit tag fetches will still work (see
git-fetch(1)).
By default, tags are cloned and passing --tags is thus
typically a no-op, unless it cancels out a previous --no-tags.
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.
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.
• 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
• Clone a local repository from a different user:
$ git clone --no-local /home/otheruser/proj.git /pub/scm/proj.git
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.
Part of the git(1) suite
This page is part of the git (Git distributed version control
system) project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://git-scm.com/⟩. If you have a bug report for this manual
page, see ⟨http://git-scm.com/community⟩. This page was obtained
from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/git/git.git⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At that time,
the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2025-08-07.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
[email protected]
Git 2.51.0.rc1 2025-08-07 GIT-CLONE(1)
Pages that refer to this page: git(1), git-backfill(1), git-bundle(1), git-config(1), git-fetch(1), git-filter-branch(1), git-p4(1), git-pull(1), git-push(1), git-submodule(1), git-worktree(1), scalar(1), gitformat-bundle(5), githooks(5), gitmodules(5), gitprotocol-v2(5), gitrepository-layout(5), giteveryday(7), gitglossary(7)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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