Engineering Craft › Version Control (Git)

Clone

Copying a remote repository, with its full history, to your machine.

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Also known as: git clone, clone a repository, cloning

git clone copies a repository from somewhere else (usually GitHub or GitLab) onto your machine, with its full history, and sets it up so you can keep in sync.

git clone https://github.com/example/project.git
git clone git@github.com:example/project.git my-folder   # SSH URL, custom folder name

It does several things at once:

Creates a folder and downloads every commit and branch.
Names the original location origin (see remote).
Checks out the repository’s default branch so you can start working.

HTTPS or SSH?

URL form	Authentication
`https://...`	Username plus a token (or credential helper)
`git@...:...` (SSH)	An SSH key you’ve registered with the host

Either works. SSH avoids typing credentials once the key is set up.

Useful options

git clone --depth 1 <url>        # only the latest commit: fast for huge repos or CI
git clone --branch dev <url>     # check out a specific branch

A --depth 1 clone is fine for building but not for browsing history, because the older commits aren’t there.

Clone vs fork vs download

Clone: your local copy of a repo. You can push back only if you have permission.
Fork: your own copy on the server, for contributing to projects you can’t push to. You then clone your fork.
Download ZIP: just the files, no history, no Git connection.

After cloning, git pull brings in new changes later (see push, pull and fetch).