Manual: git-clone

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

NAME
       git-clone - Clone a repository into a new directory

SYNOPSIS
       git clone [--template=]
		 [-l] [-s] [--no-hardlinks] [-q] [-n] [--bare] [--mirror]
		 [-o ] [-b ] [-u ] [--reference ]
		 [--dissociate] [--separate-git-dir ]
		 [--depth ] [--[no-]single-branch] [--[no-]tags]
		 [--recurse-submodules[=]] [--[no-]shallow-submodules]
		 [--[no-]remote-submodules] [--jobs ] [--sparse] [--[no-]reject-shallow]
		 [--filter= [--also-filter-submodules]] [--] 
		 []

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   while modifying .

       --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] 
	   If the reference  is on the local machine, automatically setup
	   .git/objects/info/alternates to obtain objects from the reference . 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=
	   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= are given, they are all
	   sent to the other side in the order listed on the command line. When no --server-option=
	   is given from the command line, the values of configuration variable remote..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  and placing the
	   administrative files in /.git, make the  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=
	   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  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= will filter out all blobs of size
	   at least . 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 , --origin 
	   Instead of using the remote name origin to keep track of the upstream repository, use .
	   Overrides clone.defaultRemoteName from the config.

       -b , --branch 
	   Instead of pointing the newly created HEAD to the branch pointed to by the cloned repository’s
	   HEAD, point to  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=
	   Create a new repository, and fetch the history leading to the given revision  (and nothing
	   else), without making any remote-tracking branch, and without making any local branch, and detach
	   HEAD to . 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 
	   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=
	   Specify the directory from which templates will be used; (See the "TEMPLATE DIRECTORY" section of
	   git-init(1).)

       -c =, --config =
	   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  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..mirror and remote..tagOpt. Use the corresponding --mirror and --no-tags
	   options instead.

       --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=
	   Create a shallow clone with a history after the specified time.

       --shallow-exclude=
	   Create a shallow clone with a history, excluding commits reachable from a specified remote branch
	   or tag. This option can be specified multiple times.

       --single-branch, --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.

       --tags, --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..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[=]
	   After the clone is created, initialize and clone submodules within based on the provided
	   . If no = 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  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)

       --shallow-submodules, --no-shallow-submodules
	   All submodules which are cloned will be shallow with a depth of 1.

       --remote-submodules, --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=
	   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=
	   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 , --jobs 
	   The number of submodules fetched at the same time. Defaults to the submodule.fetchJobs option.

       
	   The (possibly remote)  to clone from. See the GIT URLS section below for more
	   information on specifying repositories.

       
	   The name of a new directory to clone into. The "humanish" part of the source repository is used
	   if no  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=
	   Before fetching from the remote, fetch a bundle from the given  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://[@][:]/

       •   git://[:]/

       •   http[s]://[:]/

       •   ftp[s]://[:]/

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

       •   [@]:/

       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 ~ expansion:

       •   ssh://[@][:]/~/

       •   git://[:]/~/

       •   [@]:~/

       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- remote helper, if one exists. To explicitly request a remote helper, the following
       syntax may be used:

       •   ::


       where 
 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 ""]
			   insteadOf = 

       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 ""]
			   pushInsteadOf = 

       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

       •   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 2.53.0					 03/02/2026					GIT-CLONE(1)