Git clone without .git directory

Is there a flag to pass to git when doing a clone, say don't clone the .git directory? If not, how about a flag to delete the .git directory after the clone?

Solution 1:

Use

git clone --depth=1 --branch=master git://someserver/somerepo dirformynewrepo
rm -rf ./dirformynewrepo/.git

• The depth option will make sure to copy the least bit of history possible to get that repo.
• The branch option is optional and if not specified would get the default branch.
• The second line will make your directory dirformynewrepo not a Git repository any more.
• If you're doing recursive submodule clone, the depth and branch parameter don't apply to the submodules.

Solution 2:

since you only want the files, you don't need to treat it as a git repo.

rsync -rlp --exclude '.git' user@host:path/to/git/repo/ .

and this only works with local path and remote ssh/rsync path, it may not work if the remote server only provides git:// or https:// access.

Solution 3:

Alternatively, if you have Node.js installed, you can use the following command:

npx degit GIT_REPO

npx comes with Node, and it allows you to run binary node-based packages without installing them first (alternatively, you can first install degit globally using npm i -g degit).

Degit is a tool created by Rich Harris, the creator of Svelte and Rollup, which he uses to quickly create a new project by cloning a repository without keeping the git folder. But it can also be used to clone any repo once...