clone

README

clone

Clone GitHub repositories in parallel.

Install

macOS

brew install gechr/tap/clone

Windows

scoop bucket add gechr https://github.com/gechr/scoop-bucket
scoop install gechr/clone

Go

go install github.com/gechr/clone@latest

Usage

Filters

Flag	Description
-O, --owner <owner>	GitHub owner/organization (default: CLONE_OWNER or current gh user)
--archived	Include archived repositories
--forked	Include forked repositories
-l, --language <lang>	Filter by primary language (repeatable, matches any)
-t, --topic <topic>	Filter by topic (a,b = AND, a/b = OR, repeated flags = AND)
--stars <expr>	Filter by star count (e.g. 5, >=5, <10, 5..50)
--visibility <type>	Filter by visibility (all, public, private, internal)
-i <regex>	Only clone repositories matching regex (repeatable)
--include <name>	Only clone repository by exact name (repeatable)
-e <regex>	Skip repositories matching regex (repeatable)
--exclude <name>	Skip repository by exact name (repeatable)

Clone options

Flag	Description
-b, --branch <name>	Clone a specific branch
-D, --depth <n>	Create a shallow clone of the given depth
-Q, --quick	Shallow single-branch clone (--depth=1 --single-branch)
--fetch	Fetch updates for existing clones instead of skipping
--pull	Pull updates for existing clones (git pull --rebase; jj behaves like --fetch). Combine with --force for --rebase --force
--method <type>	Clone method (ssh, https; default: ssh)
--forge <forge>	Forge for bare owner/repo args (github, gitlab, sourcehut, codeberg, bitbucket, or a hostname; default: github)
--mirror	Create a mirror clone (git only)
--vcs <type>	Version control system (git, jj; overrides CLONE_VCS)

Output

Flag	Description
-d, --directory <path>	Clone into a specific directory
-T, --temp	Clone into a temporary directory
--print	Print temp directory path to stdout (requires --temp; implies --quiet)
-f, --force	Overwrite existing clones
-n, --dry	Show what would be cloned without cloning
-P, --parallelism <n>	Number of parallel clones (default: 20)
-q, --quiet	Suppress informational output
-v, --verbose	Show verbose output
--color <when>	When to use color (auto, always, never)

Environment variables

Variable	Description
CLONE_FORGE	Default forge, overridden by --forge
CLONE_METHOD	Default clone method (ssh or https), overridden by --method
CLONE_OWNER	Default owner/organization, overridden by --owner
CLONE_VCS	Default VCS (git or jj), overridden by --vcs

Examples

# Clone a specific repository
clone owner/repo

# Clone multiple repositories
clone owner/repo-one owner/repo-two

# Clone all Go repositories
clone --language=Go

# Clone repos that have both topics
clone -t backend,cli

# Same AND logic using repeated flags
clone -t backend -t cli

# Clone repos that have either topic
clone -t backend/cli

# Mixed logic: must have api, and either backend or platform
clone -t backend/platform,api

# Quick shallow clone (no history, default branch only)
clone --quick owner/repo

# Clone into a custom directory name
clone owner/repo=local-dir

# Clone all repositories from a different owner
clone -O other-owner all

# Clone into a specific directory
clone -d ~/projects/go --language=Go

# Clone a specific branch with shallow depth
clone --branch=main --depth=1 owner/repo

# Clone using HTTPS instead of SSH
clone --method=https owner/repo

# Clone from a GitHub URL
clone https://github.com/owner/repo

# Clone a pull request (checks out the PR branch)
clone https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/21

# Clone a PR using shorthand
clone owner/repo#21

# Clone from an SSH URL
clone git@github.com:owner/repo.git

# Fetch existing repos, clone new ones
clone --fetch --language=Go

Pull requests

PR references (owner/repo#N or a /pull/N URL) clone the repository and check out the PR's head branch.

• Single same-repo open PR: uses --branch directly (no extra fetch)
• Cross-repo, closed, or merged PRs: fetches refs/pull/N/head after clone
• For jj: imports via jj git import then creates a new change with jj new

--branch and --mirror cannot be combined with PR references.

Jujutsu support

With --vcs=jj (or CLONE_VCS=jj), clone performs a two-step process:

1. git clone (for progress reporting and compatibility)
2. jj git init --colocate (to initialize jj in the cloned repo)

--mirror is not supported with jj.