{
    "mode": "man",
    "parameter": "git-clone",
    "section": "1",
    "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-clone/1/json",
    "generated": "2026-07-27T15:09:17Z",
    "synopsis": "git clone [--template=<templatedirectory>]\n[-l] [-s] [--no-hardlinks] [-q] [-n] [--bare] [--mirror]\n[-o <name>] [-b <name>] [-u <upload-pack>] [--reference <repository>]\n[--dissociate] [--separate-git-dir <git dir>]\n[--depth <depth>] [--[no-]single-branch] [--no-tags]\n[--recurse-submodules[=<pathspec>]] [--[no-]shallow-submodules]\n[--[no-]remote-submodules] [--jobs <n>] [--sparse] [--[no-]reject-shallow]\n[--filter=<filter>] [--] <repository>\n[<directory>]",
    "sections": {
        "NAME": {
            "content": "git-clone - Clone a repository into a new directory\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "SYNOPSIS": {
            "content": "git clone [--template=<templatedirectory>]\n[-l] [-s] [--no-hardlinks] [-q] [-n] [--bare] [--mirror]\n[-o <name>] [-b <name>] [-u <upload-pack>] [--reference <repository>]\n[--dissociate] [--separate-git-dir <git dir>]\n[--depth <depth>] [--[no-]single-branch] [--no-tags]\n[--recurse-submodules[=<pathspec>]] [--[no-]shallow-submodules]\n[--[no-]remote-submodules] [--jobs <n>] [--sparse] [--[no-]reject-shallow]\n[--filter=<filter>] [--] <repository>\n[<directory>]\n\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "DESCRIPTION": {
            "content": "Clones a repository into a newly created directory, creates remote-tracking branches for each\nbranch in the cloned repository (visible using git branch --remotes), and creates and checks\nout an initial branch that is forked from the cloned repository’s currently active branch.\n\nAfter the clone, a plain git fetch without arguments will update all the remote-tracking\nbranches, and a git pull without arguments will in addition merge the remote master branch\ninto the current master branch, if any (this is untrue when \"--single-branch\" is given; see\nbelow).\n\nThis default configuration is achieved by creating references to the remote branch heads\nunder refs/remotes/origin and by initializing remote.origin.url and remote.origin.fetch\nconfiguration variables.\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "OPTIONS": {
            "content": "",
            "subsections": [
                {
                    "name": "-l, --local",
                    "content": "When the repository to clone from is on a local machine, this flag bypasses the normal\n\"Git aware\" transport mechanism and clones the repository by making a copy of HEAD and\neverything under objects and refs directories. The files under .git/objects/ directory\nare hardlinked to save space when possible.\n\nIf the repository is specified as a local path (e.g., /path/to/repo), this is the\ndefault, and --local is essentially a no-op. If the repository is specified as a URL,\nthen this flag is ignored (and we never use the local optimizations). Specifying\n--no-local will override the default when /path/to/repo is given, using the regular Git\ntransport instead.\n\nNOTE: this operation can race with concurrent modification to the source repository,\nsimilar to running cp -r src dst while modifying src.\n",
                    "flag": "-l",
                    "long": "--local"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--no-hardlinks",
                    "content": "Force the cloning process from a repository on a local filesystem to copy the files under\nthe .git/objects directory instead of using hardlinks. This may be desirable if you are\ntrying to make a back-up of your repository.\n",
                    "long": "--no-hardlinks"
                },
                {
                    "name": "-s, --shared",
                    "content": "When the repository to clone is on the local machine, instead of using hard links,\nautomatically setup .git/objects/info/alternates to share the objects with the source\nrepository. The resulting repository starts out without any object of its own.\n\nNOTE: this is a possibly dangerous operation; do not use it unless you understand what it\ndoes. If you clone your repository using this option and then delete branches (or use any\nother Git command that makes any existing commit unreferenced) in the source repository,\nsome objects may become unreferenced (or dangling). These objects may be removed by\nnormal Git operations (such as git commit) which automatically call git maintenance run\n--auto. (See git-maintenance(1).) If these objects are removed and were referenced by the\ncloned repository, then the cloned repository will become corrupt.\n\nNote that running git repack without the --local option in a repository cloned with\n--shared will copy objects from the source repository into a pack in the cloned\nrepository, removing the disk space savings of clone --shared. It is safe, however, to\nrun git gc, which uses the --local option by default.\n\nIf you want to break the dependency of a repository cloned with --shared on its source\nrepository, you can simply run git repack -a to copy all objects from the source\nrepository into a pack in the cloned repository.\n\n--reference[-if-able] <repository>\nIf the reference repository is on the local machine, automatically setup\n.git/objects/info/alternates to obtain objects from the reference repository. Using an\nalready existing repository as an alternate will require fewer objects to be copied from\nthe repository being cloned, reducing network and local storage costs. When using the\n--reference-if-able, a non existing directory is skipped with a warning instead of\naborting the clone.\n\nNOTE: see the NOTE for the --shared option, and also the --dissociate option.\n",
                    "flag": "-s",
                    "long": "--shared"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--dissociate",
                    "content": "Borrow the objects from reference repositories specified with the --reference options\nonly to reduce network transfer, and stop borrowing from them after a clone is made by\nmaking necessary local copies of borrowed objects. This option can also be used when\ncloning locally from a repository that already borrows objects from another repository—\nthe new repository will borrow objects from the same repository, and this option can be\nused to stop the borrowing.\n",
                    "long": "--dissociate"
                },
                {
                    "name": "-q, --quiet",
                    "content": "Operate quietly. Progress is not reported to the standard error stream.\n",
                    "flag": "-q",
                    "long": "--quiet"
                },
                {
                    "name": "-v, --verbose",
                    "content": "Run verbosely. Does not affect the reporting of progress status to the standard error\nstream.\n",
                    "flag": "-v",
                    "long": "--verbose"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--progress",
                    "content": "Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default when it is attached\nto a terminal, unless --quiet is specified. This flag forces progress status even if the\nstandard error stream is not directed to a terminal.\n\n--server-option=<option>\nTransmit the given string to the server when communicating using protocol version 2. The\ngiven string must not contain a NUL or LF character. The server’s handling of server\noptions, including unknown ones, is server-specific. When multiple\n--server-option=<option> are given, they are all sent to the other side in the order\nlisted on the command line.\n",
                    "long": "--progress"
                },
                {
                    "name": "-n, --no-checkout",
                    "content": "No checkout of HEAD is performed after the clone is complete.\n\n--[no-]reject-shallow\nFail if the source repository is a shallow repository. The clone.rejectShallow\nconfiguration variable can be used to specify the default.\n",
                    "flag": "-n",
                    "long": "--no-checkout"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--bare",
                    "content": "Make a bare Git repository. That is, instead of creating <directory> and placing the\nadministrative files in <directory>/.git, make the <directory> itself the $GITDIR. This\nobviously implies the --no-checkout because there is nowhere to check out the working\ntree. Also the branch heads at the remote are copied directly to corresponding local\nbranch heads, without mapping them to refs/remotes/origin/. When this option is used,\nneither remote-tracking branches nor the related configuration variables are created.\n",
                    "long": "--bare"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--sparse",
                    "content": "Initialize the sparse-checkout file so the working directory starts with only the files\nin the root of the repository. The sparse-checkout file can be modified to grow the\nworking directory as needed.\n\n--filter=<filter-spec>\nUse the partial clone feature and request that the server sends a subset of reachable\nobjects according to a given object filter. When using --filter, the supplied\n<filter-spec> is used for the partial clone filter. For example, --filter=blob:none will\nfilter out all blobs (file contents) until needed by Git. Also,\n--filter=blob:limit=<size> will filter out all blobs of size at least <size>. For more\ndetails on filter specifications, see the --filter option in git-rev-list(1).\n",
                    "long": "--sparse"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--mirror",
                    "content": "Set up a mirror of the source repository. This implies --bare. Compared to --bare,\n--mirror not only maps local branches of the source to local branches of the target, it\nmaps all refs (including remote-tracking branches, notes etc.) and sets up a refspec\nconfiguration such that all these refs are overwritten by a git remote update in the\ntarget repository.\n",
                    "long": "--mirror"
                },
                {
                    "name": "-o <name>, --origin <name>",
                    "content": "Instead of using the remote name origin to keep track of the upstream repository, use\n<name>. Overrides clone.defaultRemoteName from the config.\n",
                    "flag": "-o",
                    "long": "--origin",
                    "arg": "<name>"
                },
                {
                    "name": "-b <name>, --branch <name>",
                    "content": "Instead of pointing the newly created HEAD to the branch pointed to by the cloned\nrepository’s HEAD, point to <name> branch instead. In a non-bare repository, this is the\nbranch that will be checked out.  --branch can also take tags and detaches the HEAD at\nthat commit in the resulting repository.\n",
                    "flag": "-b",
                    "long": "--branch",
                    "arg": "<name>"
                },
                {
                    "name": "-u <upload-pack>, --upload-pack <upload-pack>",
                    "content": "When given, and the repository to clone from is accessed via ssh, this specifies a\nnon-default path for the command run on the other end.\n\n--template=<templatedirectory>\nSpecify the directory from which templates will be used; (See the \"TEMPLATE DIRECTORY\"\nsection of git-init(1).)\n\n-c <key>=<value>, --config <key>=<value>\nSet a configuration variable in the newly-created repository; this takes effect\nimmediately after the repository is initialized, but before the remote history is fetched\nor any files checked out. The key is in the same format as expected by git-config(1)\n(e.g., core.eol=true). If multiple values are given for the same key, each value will be\nwritten to the config file. This makes it safe, for example, to add additional fetch\nrefspecs to the origin remote.\n\nDue to limitations of the current implementation, some configuration variables do not\ntake effect until after the initial fetch and checkout. Configuration variables known to\nnot take effect are: remote.<name>.mirror and remote.<name>.tagOpt. Use the corresponding\n--mirror and --no-tags options instead.\n",
                    "flag": "-u",
                    "long": "--upload-pack",
                    "arg": "<upload-pack>"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--depth <depth>",
                    "content": "Create a shallow clone with a history truncated to the specified number of commits.\nImplies --single-branch unless --no-single-branch is given to fetch the histories near\nthe tips of all branches. If you want to clone submodules shallowly, also pass\n--shallow-submodules.\n\n--shallow-since=<date>\nCreate a shallow clone with a history after the specified time.\n\n--shallow-exclude=<revision>\nCreate a shallow clone with a history, excluding commits reachable from a specified\nremote branch or tag. This option can be specified multiple times.\n\n--[no-]single-branch\nClone only the history leading to the tip of a single branch, either specified by the\n--branch option or the primary branch remote’s HEAD points at. Further fetches into the\nresulting repository will only update the remote-tracking branch for the branch this\noption was used for the initial cloning. If the HEAD at the remote did not point at any\nbranch when --single-branch clone was made, no remote-tracking branch is created.\n",
                    "long": "--depth",
                    "arg": "<depth>"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--no-tags",
                    "content": "Don’t clone any tags, and set remote.<remote>.tagOpt=--no-tags in the config, ensuring\nthat future git pull and git fetch operations won’t follow any tags. Subsequent explicit\ntag fetches will still work, (see git-fetch(1)).\n\nCan be used in conjunction with --single-branch to clone and maintain a branch with no\nreferences other than a single cloned branch. This is useful e.g. to maintain minimal\nclones of the default branch of some repository for search indexing.\n\n--recurse-submodules[=<pathspec>]\nAfter the clone is created, initialize and clone submodules within based on the provided\npathspec. If no pathspec is provided, all submodules are initialized and cloned. This\noption can be given multiple times for pathspecs consisting of multiple entries. The\nresulting clone has submodule.active set to the provided pathspec, or \".\" (meaning all\nsubmodules) if no pathspec is provided.\n\nSubmodules are initialized and cloned using their default settings. This is equivalent to\nrunning git submodule update --init --recursive <pathspec> immediately after the clone is\nfinished. This option is ignored if the cloned repository does not have a\nworktree/checkout (i.e. if any of --no-checkout/-n, --bare, or --mirror is given)\n\n--[no-]shallow-submodules\nAll submodules which are cloned will be shallow with a depth of 1.\n\n--[no-]remote-submodules\nAll submodules which are cloned will use the status of the submodule’s remote-tracking\nbranch to update the submodule, rather than the superproject’s recorded SHA-1. Equivalent\nto passing --remote to git submodule update.\n\n--separate-git-dir=<git dir>\nInstead of placing the cloned repository where it is supposed to be, place the cloned\nrepository at the specified directory, then make a filesystem-agnostic Git symbolic link\nto there. The result is Git repository can be separated from working tree.\n",
                    "long": "--no-tags"
                },
                {
                    "name": "-j <n>, --jobs <n>",
                    "content": "The number of submodules fetched at the same time. Defaults to the submodule.fetchJobs\noption.\n\n<repository>\nThe (possibly remote) repository to clone from. See the GIT URLS section below for more\ninformation on specifying repositories.\n\n<directory>\nThe name of a new directory to clone into. The \"humanish\" part of the source repository\nis used if no directory is explicitly given (repo for /path/to/repo.git and foo for\nhost.xz:foo/.git). Cloning into an existing directory is only allowed if the directory is\nempty.\n",
                    "flag": "-j",
                    "long": "--jobs",
                    "arg": "<n>"
                }
            ]
        },
        "GIT URLS": {
            "content": "In general, URLs contain information about the transport protocol, the address of the remote\nserver, and the path to the repository. Depending on the transport protocol, some of this\ninformation may be absent.\n\nGit supports ssh, git, http, and https protocols (in addition, ftp, and ftps can be used for\nfetching, but this is inefficient and deprecated; do not use it).\n\nThe native transport (i.e. git:// URL) does no authentication and should be used with caution\non unsecured networks.\n\nThe following syntaxes may be used with them:\n\n•   ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/\n\n•   git://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/\n\n•   http[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/\n\n•   ftp[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/\n\nAn alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:\n\n•   [user@]host.xz:path/to/repo.git/\n\nThis syntax is only recognized if there are no slashes before the first colon. This helps\ndifferentiate a local path that contains a colon. For example the local path foo:bar could be\nspecified as an absolute path or ./foo:bar to avoid being misinterpreted as an ssh url.\n\nThe ssh and git protocols additionally support ~username expansion:\n\n•   ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/\n\n•   git://host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/\n\n•   [user@]host.xz:/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/\n\nFor local repositories, also supported by Git natively, the following syntaxes may be used:\n\n•   /path/to/repo.git/\n\n•   file:///path/to/repo.git/\n\nThese two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except the former implies --local option.\n\ngit clone, git fetch and git pull, but not git push, will also accept a suitable bundle file.\nSee git-bundle(1).\n\nWhen Git doesn’t know how to handle a certain transport protocol, it attempts to use the\nremote-<transport> remote helper, if one exists. To explicitly request a remote helper, the\nfollowing syntax may be used:\n\n•   <transport>::<address>\n\nwhere <address> may be a path, a server and path, or an arbitrary URL-like string recognized\nby the specific remote helper being invoked. See gitremote-helpers(7) for details.\n\nIf there are a large number of similarly-named remote repositories and you want to use a\ndifferent format for them (such that the URLs you use will be rewritten into URLs that work),\nyou can create a configuration section of the form:\n\n[url \"<actual url base>\"]\ninsteadOf = <other url base>\n\n\nFor example, with this:\n\n[url \"git://git.host.xz/\"]\ninsteadOf = host.xz:/path/to/\ninsteadOf = work:\n\n\na URL like \"work:repo.git\" or like \"host.xz:/path/to/repo.git\" will be rewritten in any\ncontext that takes a URL to be \"git://git.host.xz/repo.git\".\n\nIf you want to rewrite URLs for push only, you can create a configuration section of the\nform:\n\n[url \"<actual url base>\"]\npushInsteadOf = <other url base>\n\n\nFor example, with this:\n\n[url \"ssh://example.org/\"]\npushInsteadOf = git://example.org/\n\n\na URL like \"git://example.org/path/to/repo.git\" will be rewritten to\n\"ssh://example.org/path/to/repo.git\" for pushes, but pulls will still use the original URL.\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "EXAMPLES": {
            "content": "•   Clone from upstream:\n\n$ git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../linux.git my-linux\n$ cd my-linux\n$ make\n\n\n•   Make a local clone that borrows from the current directory, without checking things out:\n\n$ git clone -l -s -n . ../copy\n$ cd ../copy\n$ git show-branch\n\n\n•   Clone from upstream while borrowing from an existing local directory:\n\n$ git clone --reference /git/linux.git \\\ngit://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../linux.git \\\nmy-linux\n$ cd my-linux\n\n\n•   Create a bare repository to publish your changes to the public:\n\n$ git clone --bare -l /home/proj/.git /pub/scm/proj.git\n\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "GIT": {
            "content": "Part of the git(1) suite\n\n\n\nGit 2.34.1                                   02/26/2026                                 GIT-CLONE(1)",
            "subsections": []
        }
    },
    "summary": "git-clone - Clone a repository into a new directory",
    "flags": [
        {
            "flag": "-l",
            "long": "--local",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "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."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--no-hardlinks",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "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."
        },
        {
            "flag": "-s",
            "long": "--shared",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "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."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--dissociate",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "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."
        },
        {
            "flag": "-q",
            "long": "--quiet",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "Operate quietly. Progress is not reported to the standard error stream."
        },
        {
            "flag": "-v",
            "long": "--verbose",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "Run verbosely. Does not affect the reporting of progress status to the standard error stream."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--progress",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "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."
        },
        {
            "flag": "-n",
            "long": "--no-checkout",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "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."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--bare",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "Make a bare Git repository. That is, instead of creating <directory> and placing the administrative files in <directory>/.git, make the <directory> itself the $GITDIR. 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."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--sparse",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "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)."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--mirror",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "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."
        },
        {
            "flag": "-o",
            "long": "--origin",
            "arg": "<name>",
            "description": "Instead of using the remote name origin to keep track of the upstream repository, use <name>. Overrides clone.defaultRemoteName from the config."
        },
        {
            "flag": "-b",
            "long": "--branch",
            "arg": "<name>",
            "description": "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."
        },
        {
            "flag": "-u",
            "long": "--upload-pack",
            "arg": "<upload-pack>",
            "description": "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=<templatedirectory> 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."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--depth",
            "arg": "<depth>",
            "description": "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."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--no-tags",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "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."
        },
        {
            "flag": "-j",
            "long": "--jobs",
            "arg": "<n>",
            "description": "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."
        }
    ],
    "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"
    ],
    "see_also": [],
    "tldr": {
        "source": "official",
        "description": "Clone an existing repository.",
        "examples": [
            {
                "description": "Clone an existing repository into a new directory (the default directory is the repository name)",
                "command": "git clone {{remote_repository_location}} {{path/to/directory}}"
            },
            {
                "description": "Clone an existing repository and its submodules",
                "command": "git clone --recursive {{remote_repository_location}}"
            },
            {
                "description": "Clone only the `.git` directory of an existing repository",
                "command": "git clone {{-n|--no-checkout}} {{remote_repository_location}}"
            },
            {
                "description": "Clone a local repository",
                "command": "git clone {{-l|--local}} {{path/to/local_repository}}"
            },
            {
                "description": "Clone quietly",
                "command": "git clone {{-q|--quiet}} {{remote_repository_location}}"
            },
            {
                "description": "Clone an existing repository only fetching the 10 most recent commits on the default branch (useful to save time)",
                "command": "git clone --depth 10 {{remote_repository_location}}"
            },
            {
                "description": "Clone an existing repository only fetching a specific branch",
                "command": "git clone {{-b|--branch}} {{name}} --single-branch {{remote_repository_location}}"
            },
            {
                "description": "Clone an existing repository using a specific SSH command",
                "command": "git clone {{-c|--config}} core.sshCommand=\"{{ssh -i path/to/private_ssh_key}}\" {{remote_repository_location}}"
            }
        ]
    }
}