-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.
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
Initialize the sparse-checkout file so the working directory
starts with only the files in the root of the repository. The
sparse-checkout file can be modified 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).
--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.
-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.
