I have a `master` and a `development` branch, both pushed to [GitHub][1]. I&#39;ve `clone`d, `pull`ed, and `fetch`ed, but I remain unable to get anything other than the `master` branch back.

I&#39;m sure I&#39;m missing something obvious, but I have read the manual and I&#39;m getting no joy at all.

  [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub


How to clone all remote branches in Git

Git clone will clone remote branch into local. 

Is there any way to clone a specific branch by myself without switching branches on the remote repository?

How do I clone a specific Git branch?

I clone my repository with:

    git clone ssh://xxxxx/xx.git 

But after I change some files and `add` and `commit` them, I want to push them to the server:

    git add xxx.php
    git commit -m &quot;TEST&quot;
    git push origin master

But the error I get back is:

&lt;!-- language: lang-none --&gt;

    error: src refspec master does not match any.  
    error: failed to push some refs to &#39;ssh://xxxxx.com/project.git&#39;



Message &#39;src refspec master does not match any&#39; when pushing commits in Git

Executing the command `git clone git@github.com:whatever` creates a directory in my current folder named `whatever`, and drops the contents of the Git repository into that folder:

    /httpdocs/whatever/public

My problem is that I need the contents of the Git repository cloned into my current directory so that they appear in the proper location for the web server:

    /httpdocs/public

I know how to move the files after I&#39;ve cloned the repository, but this seems to break Git, and I&#39;d like to be able to update just by calling `git pull`. How can I do this?



How do you clone a Git repository into a specific folder?

I&#39;m trying to figure out how I can download a particular tag of a Git repository - it&#39;s one version behind the current version.

I saw there was a tag for the previous version on the git web page, with object name of something long hex number. 

But the version name is &quot;`Tagged release 1.1.5`&quot; according the site.

I tried a command like this (with names changed):

    git clone http://git.abc.net/git/abc.git my_abc

 
And I did get something - a directory, a bunch of subdirectories, etc.  

If it&#39;s the whole repository, how do I get at the version I&#39;m seeking? If not, how do I download that particular version? 







Download a specific tag with Git

I have my Git repository which, at the root, has two sub directories:

    /finisht
    /static

When this was in [SVN][1], `/finisht` was checked out in one place, while `/static` was checked out elsewhere, like so:

    svn co svn+ssh://admin@domain.com/home/admin/repos/finisht/static static

Is there a way to do this with Git?

  [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Subversion


How do I clone a subdirectory only of a Git repository?

I cloned a Git repository from my GitHub account to my PC.

I want to work with both my PC and laptop, but with one GitHub account.

When I try to push to or pull from GitHub using my PC, it requires a username and password, but not when I&#39;m using the&#160;laptop!

I don&#39;t want to type my username and password every time I interact with&#160;`origin`. What am I missing&#160;here?

Git push requires username and password

I have a local Git repository called &#39;skeleton&#39; that I use for storing project skeletons. It has a few branches, for different kinds of projects:

    casey@agave [~/Projects/skeleton] git branch
    * master
      rails
      c
      c++

If I want to check out the master branch for a new project, I can do

    casey@agave [~/Projects] git clone skeleton new
    Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/casey/Projects/new/.git/

and everything is how I want it. Specifically, the new master branch points to the skeleton master branch, and I can push and pull to move around changes to the basic project setup.

What doesn&#39;t work, however, is if I want to clone another branch. I can&#39;t get it so that I only pull the branch I want, for instance the `rails` branch, and then the new repository has a `master` branch that pushes to and pulls from the skeleton repository&#39;s `rails` branch, by default.

Is there a good way to go about doing this? Or, maybe this isn&#39;t the way that Git wants me to structure things, and I&#39;m certainly open to that. Perhaps I should have multiple repositories, with the Ruby on Rails skeleton repository tracking the master skeleton repository? And any individual project cloning the Ruby on Rails skeleton repository.

How do I clone a single branch in Git?

I keep hearing people say they&#39;re forking code in Git. Git &quot;fork&quot; sounds suspiciously like Git &quot;clone&quot; plus some (meaningless) psychological willingness to forgo future merges.  There is no fork command in Git, right?

GitHub makes forks a little more real by stapling correspondence onto it. That is, you press the fork button and later, when you press the pull request button, the system is smart enough to email the owner. Hence, it&#39;s a little bit of a dance around repository ownership and permissions.

Yes/No? Any angst over GitHub extending Git in this direction? Or any rumors of Git absorbing the functionality?




Are Git forks actually Git clones?

How can I convert a &#39;normal&#39; Git repository to a bare one?

The main difference seems to be:

* in the normal Git repository, you have a `.git` folder inside the repository containing all relevant data and all other files making up your working copy

* in a bare Git repository, there is no working copy and the folder (let&#39;s call it `repo.git`) contains the actual repository data


How to convert a normal Git repository to a bare one?

I&#39;m doing:

    git clone ssh://user@host.com/home/user/private/repos/project_hub.git ./

I&#39;m getting:

&gt; Fatal: destination path &#39;.&#39; already exists and is not an empty
&gt; directory.


I know path . already exists.
And I can assure that directory IS empty. (I do ls inside and I see nothing!)

**What am I missing here in order to clone that project into the current directory ?**



How to get Git to clone into current directory

The git clone help page has this to say about `--mirror`:

&gt; Set up a mirror of the remote repository. This implies `--bare`.

But doesn&#39;t go into detail about how the `--mirror` clone is different from a `--bare` clone.


What&#39;s the difference between git clone --mirror and git clone --bare

I want to understand the difference between a branch, a fork and a clone in Git?

Similarly, what does it mean when I do a `git fetch` as opposed to a `git pull`? 

Also, what does `rebase` mean in comparison to `merge`? 

How can I squash individual commits themselves together?

How are they used, why are they used and what do they represent?

How does GitHub figure in?

What are the differences between git branch, fork, fetch, merge, rebase and clone?

How can I clone git repository with specific revision, something like I usually do in Mercurial:

    hg clone -r 3 /path/to/repository

How to clone git repository with specific revision/changeset?

From [git-clone(1) Manual Page][1]

&gt; `--branch` can also take tags and detaches the HEAD at that commit in the resulting repository.

I tried  

    git clone --branch &lt;tag_name&gt; &lt;repo_url&gt;

But it does not work. It returns:  

    warning: Remote branch 2.13.0 not found in upstream origin, using HEAD instead

How to use this parameter?

  [1]: http://git-scm.com/docs/git-clone

How to clone a specific Git tag

**Problem**

How do you create a shallow copy with git-svn from a Subversion repository, e.g. how do you pull only the last three revisions?

The `git clone` command can get the last n revisions from a Git repository if you use the option `--depth`, i.e. you get a shallow copy of the repository. Example:

    git clone --depth 3 git://some/repo myshallowcopyrepo

Is there a similar option for git-svn?

**My discoveries so far**

So far I&#39;ve only found the `-rN` option where `N` is the revision to pull. Example:

    git svn clone -rN svn://some/repo

According to the documentation there is the possibility to use `-r$REVNUMBER:HEAD`. I tried the following to get the last 3 revisions which returned an error message.

    $ git svn clone --prefix=svn/ -s -rHEAD~3:HEAD http://some/svn/repo .
    revision argument: HEAD~3:HEAD not understood by git-svn

So I replaced `HEAD~3` with the actual number of the third but last revision 534. That worked, but that requires me to first figure out the revision number of the third but last commit.

    $ git svn clone --prefix=svn/ -s -r534:HEAD http://some/svn/repo .


**Documentation**

[git-clone][1]

[git-svn][2]

  [1]: http://git-scm.com/docs/git-clone
  [2]: http://git-scm.com/docs/git-svn

How to git-svn clone the last n revisions from a Subversion repository?

I have a private repository on Github for a project I&#39;m working on.  Until now I had only worked on my home desktop, but I just bought a laptop, and am trying to set it up so that I can work on the project from either computer, and push / pull changes.  

I added a new SSH key to my Github account for the laptop, and was successful in cloning and making changes to a public test repo that I set up.  However, I couldn&#39;t clone the private repo.  Is there anything special I need to do in the command line in order to clone a private repo?  Do I need to set up a new GitHub account for my laptop and set myself up as a collaborator?

The command I used was `git clone git://github.com/username/reponame.git`

Clone A Private Repository (Github)

The `--depth 1` option in [`git clone`](http://git-scm.com/docs/git-clone):

&gt; Create a *shallow* clone with a history truncated to the specified number of revisions. A shallow repository has a number of limitations (you cannot clone or fetch from it, nor push from nor into it), but is adequate if you are only interested in the recent history of a large project with a long history, and would want to send in fixes as patches. 

But I&#39;ve successfully done a shallow clone, committed some changes **and pushed those changes** back to the (bare clone) origin.

It makes sense to me - I mean why not? when the cloned HEAD is identifiable in the origin, and my commit comes on top of this, there seems no reason. But the manual says otherwise.

I like the idea of shallow clone - e.g. of drupal core: there&#39;s no way I need to know what went on in drupal 4 when I&#39;ve started from 7. - but I don&#39;t want to shoot myself in the foot.

So is it safe to shallow clone, develop commits in it, pull again to keep up with updates from origin?

Is it safe to shallow clone with --depth 1, create commits, and pull updates again?

I have a project on which I created a git repository:

    $ cd myproject  
    $ git init  
    $ git add .  
    $ git commit  

I the wanted to create a bare clone on another machine:

    $ cd ..  
    $ git clone --bare myproject  ssh://user@server:/GitRepos/myproject.git  

I executed the clone but did not print any answer.
I logged on to the server machine and tried to see how the files are stored. The path /GitRepos was empty, so I decided to do the clone again:  

    $ git clone --bare myproject  ssh://user@server:/GitRepos/myproject.git

This time the answer was :

&gt;fatal: destination path &#39;ssh://user@server:/GitRepos/myproject.git&#39; already exists and is not an empty directory.

But I saw that the path was empty.  
What&#39;s going on here ?


git clone through ssh

I know I can get the project through `git clone` command, but is there any way, how to download the project through the web interface from [BitBucket.org][1]?
In the best way, I am looking for a way to download a project source as ZIP compress file.


  [1]: https://bitbucket.org/

BitBucket - download source as ZIP

I am trying to set up Bower on a build server at our organization&#39;s data center, but `git`&#39;s port does not appear to be open on the data center&#39;s firewall.  I can use the git command line client to clone via `https://[repo]`, but not `git://[repo]`.

Is there a switch or preference which will instruct bower to perform git clone using `https` rather than the `git` protocol?

I&#39;ve looked at the source, and considered changing the resolution code to replace `git://` with `https://`, but I figured I&#39;d ask before I go to those lengths.

Bower install using only https?

I&#39;m having an issue with a repository at the moment, and though my Git-fu is usually good, I can&#39;t seem to solve this issue.

When I clone this repository, then `cd` into the repository, `git status` shows several files as changed. Note: I haven&#39;t opened the repository in any editor or anything.

I tried following this guide: http://help.github.com/dealing-with-lineendings/, but this didn&#39;t help at all with my issue.

I have tried `git checkout -- .` many times, but it seems not to do anything.

I&#39;m on a Mac, and there are no submodules in the repository itself.

The filesystem is &quot;Journaled HFS+&quot; filesystem on the Mac and is not case-sensitive. The files are one-line and about 79&amp;nbsp;KB each (yes, you heard right), so looking at `git diff` isn&#39;t particularly helpful. I have heard about doing `git config --global core.trustctime false` which might help, which I will try when I get back to the computer with the repository on it.

I changed details of filesystem with facts! And I tried the `git config --global core.trustctime false` trick which didn&#39;t work very well.



Files showing as modified directly after a Git clone

I am trying to git clone the LibreOffice codebase, but at the moment I have an internet connection of about 300kbps and it&#39;s just anything but stable. I can get the connection back any moment, but then the git clone process already stopped working, and no way to get it running again. Is there some way to have a more failure-resistant git clone download?

One option I considered myself is to download someone else&#39;s .git directory, but that is overly dependent of others and doesn&#39;t seem like the best possible solution to me.

How to complete a git clone for a big project on an unstable connection?

I cloned a remote git repository about a month ago. The remote repository has undergone many changes and has now become unstable. Now I need another copy of the repository, version identical to the one I cloned a month ago.

How do I do this?

Git clone particular version of remote repository

I am a complete Noob when it comes to GIT.  I have been just taking my first steps over the last few days.  I setup a repo on my laptop, pulled down the Trunk from an SVN project (had some issues with branches, not got them working), but all seems ok there.

I now want to be able to pull or push from the laptop to my main desktop.  The reason being the laptop is handy on the train as I spend 2 hours a day travelling and can get some good work done.  But my main machine at home is great for development.  So I want to be able to push / pull from the laptop to the main computer when I get home.  I thought the most simple way of doing this would be to just have the code folder shared out across the LAN and do:

    git clone file://192.168.10.51/code

unfortunately this doesn&#39;t seem to be working for me:

so I open a git bash cmd and type the above command, I am in C:\code (the shared folder for both machines) this is what I get back:

    Initialized empty Git repository in C:/code/code/.git/
    fatal: &#39;C:/Program Files (x86)/Git/code&#39; does not appear to be a git repository
    fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

How can I share the repository between the two machines in the most simple of ways.

There will be other locations that will be official storage points and places where the other devs and CI server etc will pull from, this is just so that I can work on the same repo across two machines.

As per Sebastian&#39;s suggestion I get the following:

    C:\code&gt;git clone --no-hardlinks file://192.168.10.51/code
    Initialized empty Git repository in C:/code/code/.git/
    fatal: &#39;C:/Program Files (x86)/Git/code&#39; does not appear to be a git repository
    fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly


**EDIT - ANSWER **

Thanks to all that helped.  I tried the mapping a drive and that worked so thought I would go back and retry without mapping.  The final result was:

    git clone file://\\\\192.168.0.51\code

This worked great.

Thanks

GIT clone repo across local file system in windows

I am trying to clone repo from another directory.

Lets say I have one repo in `C:/folder1` and `C:/folder2`

I want to clone the work in `folder1` into `folder2`.

What would I type into the command prompt to do this? 

It seems that often when cloning a URL is provided rather then a file path, however, at this moment I am just practicing and trying to get use to Git.

git clone from another directory

I am unable to clone a Git repository, and getting this error:

    krishna.soni@KRISHNACHANDRAS /c/Projects $ git clone http://stage.abc.com:10088/pqr
    http://&lt;url&gt;/&lt;repository&gt; Cloning into &#39;&lt;repository&gt;&#39;... fatal: could not read Username for &#39;http://&lt;url&gt;&#39;: No such file or directory

I&#39;ve read [Bitbucket, Windows and “fatal: could not read Password for”](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20923193/bitbucket-windows-and-fatal-could-not-read-password-for), but still have the problem.

I proceeded further but am now getting this error

    sh.exe&quot;: chown: command not found

    krishna.soni@KRISHNACHANDRAS /c
    $ git clone ssh://krishna.sonipayu.in@stage.payupaisa.
    /projects
    Cloning into &#39;C:/projects&#39;...
    Permission denied (publickey).
    fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

    Please make sure you have the correct access rights
    and the repository exists.

    &gt; krishna.soni@KRISHNACHANDRAS /c
    &gt;     $ git clone ssh:&lt;url&gt;
    &gt;     ts
    &gt;     Cloning into &#39;C:/projects&#39;...
    &gt;     Permission denied (publickey).
    &gt;     fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

    Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

Git: Permission denied (publickey) fatal - Could not read from remote repository. while cloning Git repository

Is there a flag to pass to `git` when doing a clone, say don&#39;t clone the `.git` directory? If not, how about a flag to delete the `.git` directory after the clone?

Git clone without .git directory

How do I clone my GitHub repository&#39;s wiki? I know it&#39;s saved as a separate Git repository, but I can&#39;t remember the path.

I&#39;ve tried ```...reponame/wiki.git``` and ```...reponame.git/wiki```, but neither are correct.


How do I clone a GitHub wiki?

I am trying to clone the [angular-phonecat git repository][1], but I am getting the following message when I enter the command in my Git Bash:

    $ git clone git://github.com/angular/angular-phonecat.git  
    Cloning into &#39;angular-phonecat&#39;...  
    fatal: unable to connect to github.com:  
    github.com[0: 204.232.175.90]: errno=No error


  [1]: https://github.com/angular/angular-phonecat

Unable to Connect to GitHub.com For Cloning

I have one repo hosted at https://github.com/aikiframework/json . On my local copy, I added a submodule using the command

    git submodule add git@github.com:jcubic/json-rpc.git json-rpc

Then I did a commit and push, and the changes appear on GitHub (I can click on it). But when I clone the repo

    git clone https://github.com/aikiframework/json.git

the submodule folder json-rpc is empty.

What am I missing here? Did I forget about something? Why is that folder empty?

Empty Git submodule folder when repo cloned

I have created a git repository to mirror a live site (which is a non-bare git repository):

    git clone --mirror ssh://user@example.com/path/to/repo

Now, to keep this mirror clone updated with all changes from its remote origin, which command or commands I must use?

I&#39;d like to keep everything updated: commits, refs, hooks, branches, etc.

Thanks!

How to update a git clone --mirror?

I have a company GitHub account and I want to back up all of the repositories within, accounting for anything new that might get created for purposes of automation. I was hoping something like this:

    git clone git@github.com:company/*.git 

or similar would work, but it doesn&#39;t seem to like the wildcard there. 

Is there a way in Git to clone and then pull everything assuming one has the appropriate permissions?

How to clone all repos at once from GitHub?

This command works to get the files and compile them:

    git clone a-valid-git-url

for example:

    git clone git://cfdem.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/cfdem/liggghts

However, `git status` (or any other git command) then gives the above `fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories)` error.

What am I doing wrong?


 

&quot;fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories)&quot; from git status

I&#39;m trying to clone my fork of the kivy git, but it&#39;s not working. I&#39;ve made the fork correctly, I believe, but when I type this into my Mac terminal:

&gt; git clone https://github.com/mygitusername/kivy.git

I get this error:

&gt; fatal: could not create work tree dir &#39;kivy.: Permission denied

Anyone see what I am doing wrong? Thanks!

fatal: could not create work tree dir &#39;kivy&#39;

How do I shallow clone a git repository, so that my clone contains only 1 history item, and starts on a specific branch?

I know how to do a shallow clone:

    git clone --depth 1 https://path/to/myrepo.git

 but not start the clone on a specific branch.


How do I shallow clone a repo on a specific branch?

Note that using **`--depth=1`** parameter [prevents][1] you from **pushing the project to a new repository**.


  [1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28983842/remote-rejected-shallow-update-not-allowed-after-changing-git-remote-url

How to clone seed/kick-start project without the whole history?

What does the `clone` command do? Is there any equivalent to it in svn?

What is the difference between 

    git remote add test git://github.com/user/test.git

And 

    git clone git://github.com/user/test.git

Does the name of the created repo matter?

Difference between git remote add and git clone

If you `git clone` with `--recursive`, you can get all the git submodules too.

If I&#39;ve forgotten to add this magical flag when cloning, as can happen, how do I now go and get any submodules?

Additionally, how can I set the recursive flag as a default for future clones?

Retrospectively add --recursive to a git repo

When doing a shallow clone in git (using the `--depth` option), the root commit is marked as *grafted*.

![enter image description here][1]

Googling didn&#39;t lead to any satisfacting documentation.

It doesn&#39;t seem to have anything to do with [git grafts](https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/GraftPoint), which the similar terminology would imply.  
Is it just a flag to signal that this commit actually has more parents and isn&#39;t the &quot;real&quot; root commit? Or is there something more special about it?

  [1]: http://i.stack.imgur.com/dZlsX.png

What exactly is a &quot;grafted&quot; commit in a shallow clone?

When I clone a repository, is there any difference between these two URLs?

 1. Without .git extension:

        git clone http://foo/repo

 2. With .git extension:

        git clone http://foo/repo.git

Why do some repository URLs end in .git while others don&#39;t?

I&#39;m wondering if there is any way to know who has checked out my project hosted on GitHub? This would include people who have forked the project directly on GitHub, as well as people who may have cloned the repository using standard `git clone` commands.

Is it possible to find out the users who have checked out my project on GitHub?

I&#39;m trying to clone a remote repository on github, but it is big and my connection doesn&#39;t seem to be stable enough, so I can&#39;t clone it successfully.

But I have successfully downloaded the .zip of the repository.

Is there a way to use this zip as it was created by git clone, so I can push, pull etc..?

How to clone git repository from its zip

I am trying to clone a Git repo using a custom SSH command. I set the SSH command in the GIT_SSH environmental variably be running 

`export GIT_SSH=&quot;/usr/bin/ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -i /home/me/my_private_key&quot;`. 

But when, after the previous command I run 

`git clone git@bitbucket.org:uname/test-git-repo.git`, I get the following weird error

    error: cannot run /usr/bin/ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -i /home/me/my_private_key
    fatal: unable to fork

Can you please help me out solve this issue?

Git clone with custom SSH using GIT_SSH error

In a recent question I made, one of the [answers][1] pointed to another answer in another question where a way to explore the forks and clones of a public Github repo was shared.

I went ahead and did that with my own public repo and came up with this information in the `Git clones` section under the `Traffic` tab in the _Graphs_ section:

![enter image description here][2]


I&#39;m not really sure I understand what this information means. Are there 6 clones of the repo in total with 4 of them made on the 09/08? Did only 3 unique cloners cloned it?, in which case, does that mean they cloned it more than once? Do those numbers include myself and any clones I might have made in different systems (ie: home PC, work PC, laptop, etc)? Any help is much appreciated.

  [1]: https://stackoverflow.com/a/25849917/1391441
  [2]: http://i.stack.imgur.com/giCWr.png

Explain clones info in Github&#39;s Traffic tab

On one machine (IP address 192.168.1.2), I create a Git repository by
    
    $ cd /home/hap/working
    $ git init
    $ (add some files)
    $ git add .
    $ git commit -m &#39;Initial commit&#39;

And I have another machine on the same Wi-Fi network. How can I get clone from the other machine?


How can I &#39;git clone&#39; from another machine?

I am trying to clone a remote repository on Windows, but when I did this:

    git clone git@github.com:organization/xxx.git

I got this error:


    error: cannot run ssh: No such file or directory
    fatal: unable to fork

Am I missing something?


error: cannot run ssh: No such file or directory when trying to clone on windows

I have to clone a couple of big repos in my Dockerfile. It really can take an hour to clone a single repo and I want to see standard Git progress output to understand what&#39;s going on.

However, when Git is started from the Dockerfile, I see no git clone output whatsoever. The only thing printed to console is:

    Cloning into &#39;/root/lib/opencv&#39;...
    POST git-upload-pack (gzip 2052 to 1062 bytes)

and then just a silence. While, usually, I expect something like this:

    Cloning into &#39;opencv&#39;...
    POST git-upload-pack (gzip 2040 to 1052 bytes)
    remote: Counting objects: 158365, done.
    Receiving objects:   8% (12670/158365), 2.32 MiB | 255.00 KiB/s
    ... and so on ...

How to enable git verbose output in docker build? Maybe I have to start some interactive mode?

Git clone verbose output?

The `git clone --depth` command option says

    --depth &lt;depth&gt; 
    Create a shallow clone with a history truncated to the specified number of revisions. 
    A shallow repository has a number of limitations 
    (you cannot clone or fetch from it, nor push from nor into it),
     but is adequate if you are only interested in the recent history of a large project with a long history,
     and would want to send in fixes as patches. 

Why do shallow clones have this limitation? Why is it a patches only workflow?


For some project workflows I need to pass just the latest commit from a single branch to a coder, and then have them be able to `push` their (fast forward) developments to the main server. This partly for security, IP protection and repo size, and partly to reduce the confusion that a big repo would bring to a naive coder. Is there a git workflow that allows this?

---
Update: Based on Karl Bielefeldt&#39;s answer the `git checkout --orphan` should be the right answer. But one still needs to &#39;clone&#39; that branch alone to the new user, and be able to push it effectively.

The man page states:
&gt; `git checkout [-q] [-f] [-m] [[-b|-B|--orphan] &lt;new_branch&gt;] [&lt;start_point&gt;] --orphan`
&gt;
&gt; Create a new orphan branch, named `&lt;new_branch&gt;`, started from
&gt; `&lt;start_point&gt;`  and switch to it. The first commit made on this new
&gt; branch will have no  parents and it will be the root of a new history
&gt; totally disconnected from  all the other branches and commits.
&gt; 
&gt; The index and the working tree are adjusted as if you had previously
&gt; run `git checkout &lt;start_point&gt;`. This allows you to start a new
&gt; history that  records a set of paths similar to `&lt;start_point&gt;` by
&gt; easily running `git  commit -a` to make the root commit.
&gt; 
&gt; This can be useful when you want to publish the tree from a commit
&gt; without  exposing its full history. You might want to do this to
&gt; publish an open  source branch of a project whose current tree is
&gt; &quot;clean&quot;, but whose full  history contains proprietary or otherwise
&gt; encumbered bits of code.
&gt; 
&gt; If you want to start a disconnected history that records a set of
&gt; paths that  is totally different from the one of `&lt;start_point&gt;`, then
&gt; you should clear  the index and the working tree right after creating
&gt; the orphan branch by  running `git rm -rf .` from the top level of the
&gt; working tree. Afterwards  you will be ready to prepare your new files,
&gt; repopulating the working tree,  by copying them from elsewhere,
&gt; extracting a tarball, etc.

VonC&#39;s link to Junio&#39;s comments is interesting. I think the manual should provide the guidance in this case, and allow the right command [e.g. `clone &lt;branch&gt; --options`] to extract just the relevant part of the repo. Obviously the probability of `push` success is increased by having a few linked commits and SHA1s at the bottom of the history that will lock down the repo matching.

----
Update Git 1.9.0 : release notes 14 Feb &#39;14.

&quot;Fetching from a shallowly-cloned repository used to be forbidden,
primarily because the codepaths involved were not carefully vetted
and we did not bother supporting such usage. This release attempts
to allow object transfer out of a shallowly-cloned repository in a
more controlled way (i.e. the receiver becomes a shallow repository
with a truncated history).&quot;

This is good news for the shallow cloners.
Next - Narrow clones possibly.


Why can&#39;t I push from a shallow clone?

My understanding is that the default branch of a cloned repository is to be whatever HEAD points to in the repo being cloned.

I now have a case where this is not true. My understanding is obviously flawed, so what does determine the default checkout branch when cloning a (bare) repo?

The last commit on that repo was a merge between the branch referenced in the bare repo&#39;s HEAD into the branch I&#39;m getting as the checkout branch in the clone.

Running `git remote show origin` returns:

    Fetch URL: ...
    Push  URL: ...
    HEAD branch (remote HEAD is ambiguous, may be one of the following):
      &lt;bad-branch&gt;
      live
    Remote branches:
      ...

Bare repo uses Git version 1.8.2.1, client uses 1.7.12.4, transport is SSH.

Maybe the answer is actually [this one here](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13061364/why-git-remote-show-name-display-remote-head-is-ambiguous-may-be-one-of-the). [This answer](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2574517/error-with-git-remote-head-is-ambiguous-may-be-one-of-the-following) confirms it. If there is a choice of symbolic refs all pointing to the same revision as HEAD, the client will _guess_ which branch to use. 

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