How to clone a specific Git tag

Question

--branch can also take tags and detaches the HEAD at that commit in the resulting repository.

I tried

git clone --branch <tag_name> <repo_url>

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?

possible duplicate of [Download a specific tag with Git](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/791959/download-a-specific-tag-with-git) — Victor Sergienko, Oct 01 '14 at 16:30
You're right, but little difference. When I ask this question, in my situation, I needed to do this in one line and must use `clone`, and I was stuck at 'why --branch doesn't work'. The best answer of that url used `clone`->`checkout`, which cannot resolve my question. :) — Jiang Jun, Oct 08 '14 at 08:35
Not sure if the problem persists after five months, but most likely, the tag is not *2.13.0* but *v2.13.0*. Been there, done that. — berndbausch, Apr 29 '22 at 08:54
There's some good advice in the answers for the similar question linked by @VictorSergienko: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/791959/download-a-specific-tag-with-git — NeilG, Apr 13 '23 at 07:13

score 824 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 17 '20 at 10:11

824

git clone --depth 1 --branch <tag_name> <repo_url>

--depth 1 is optional but if you only need the state at that one revision, you probably want to skip downloading all the history up to that revision.

edited Jul 17 '20 at 10:11

Giszmo

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answered Feb 11 '14 at 10:32

Erik Saunier

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Note if the ref is ambiguous and you have a branch and a tag named the same thing, this will prefer the branch. – Keith Smiley Feb 21 '18 at 22:18
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without the optional --depth 1 this is exactly the same as OPs or do i miss something? – 463035818_is_not_an_ai Sep 30 '20 at 14:10
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@463035818 Seems the same, might be OP did not really have any 2.13.0 tag on remote. – wim Sep 07 '21 at 19:34
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But tags are not branches. How do you get a specific *tag*? – Melab Sep 19 '21 at 16:05
@Melab, from a man page of git-clone, "--branch can also take tags and detaches the HEAD at that commit in the resulting repository" – Krerkkiat Chusap Sep 19 '21 at 22:43

score 124 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 01 '18 at 12:23

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Use --single-branch option to only clone history leading to tip of the tag. This saves a lot of unnecessary code from being cloned.

git clone <repo_url> --branch <tag_name> --single-branch

edited Jun 01 '18 at 12:23

GGO

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answered Dec 11 '14 at 11:16

Sahil kalra

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Is `--single-branch` equivalent to `--depth 1`? – igracia Jan 14 '16 at 14:34
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No, its not equivalent. --single-branch clones the history for a whole branch. With --depth 1 no history at all is cloned. – Martin Krung Feb 02 '16 at 11:15
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Also `--single-branch` is implied when `--depth` is used. From the manual `When creating a shallow clone with the --depth option, this is the default` – koda Nov 18 '19 at 15:51

score 36 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 08 '14 at 02:51

git clone -b 13.1rc1-Gotham  --depth 1  https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc.git
Cloning into 'xbmc'...
remote: Counting objects: 17977, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (13473/13473), done.
Receiving objects:  36% (6554/17977), 19.21 MiB | 469 KiB/s

Will be faster than :

git clone https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc.git
Cloning into 'xbmc'...
remote: Reusing existing pack: 281705, done.
remote: Counting objects: 533, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (177/177), done.
Receiving objects:  14% (40643/282238), 55.46 MiB | 578 KiB/s

Or

git clone -b 13.1rc1-Gotham  https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc.git
Cloning into 'xbmc'...
remote: Reusing existing pack: 281705, done.
remote: Counting objects: 533, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (177/177), done.
Receiving objects:  12% (34441/282238), 20.25 MiB | 461 KiB/s

`--depth 1` is a gem, so many people download the whole git history just to use the `HEAD`. — MGP, Nov 28 '14 at 15:17
`--depth 1` should be made default; if someone tries to chechout a previous commit, they should be prompted to download the rest. — Jikku Jose, Jun 30 '16 at 15:39

score 15 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 21 '20 at 17:49

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git clone --depth 1 --branch <tag_name> <repo_url>

Example

git clone --depth 1 --branch 0.37.2 https://github.com/apache/incubator-superset.git

<tag_name> : 0.37.2

<repo_url> : https://github.com/apache/incubator-superset.git

answered Dec 21 '20 at 17:49

Akitha_MJ

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The command is character for character exactly the same as the selected answer. – Craig Hicks Sep 07 '21 at 20:21
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yea but check the example , it's for better uderstading – Akitha_MJ Aug 03 '22 at 06:19

score 7 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 22 '17 at 05:45

7

Use the command

git clone --help

to see whether your git supports the command

git clone --branch tag_name

If not, just do the following:

git clone repo_url 
cd repo
git checkout tag_name

answered Feb 22 '17 at 05:45

mathsyouth

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this is working git clone repo_url cd repo git checkout tag_name – mahmoud alaa Feb 09 '23 at 14:50

Noam Manos · Answer 6 · 2020-04-01T15:27:33.517

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Cloning a specific tag, might return 'detached HEAD' state.

As a workaround, try to clone the repo first, and then checkout a specific tag. For example:

repo_url=https://github.com/owner/project.git
repo_dir=$(basename $repo_url .git)
repo_tag=0.5

git clone --single-branch $repo_url # using --depth 1 can show no tags
git --work-tree=$repo_dir --git-dir=$repo_dir/.git checkout tags/$repo_tag

Note: Since Git 1.8.5, you can use -C <path>, instead of --work-tree and --git-dir.

edited Apr 01 '20 at 15:27

answered Mar 26 '20 at 11:17

Noam Manos

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Cloning a specific tag *will* detach HEAD. That's the point. – jbg Mar 27 '22 at 15:51

score -2 · Answer 7 · edited Feb 13 '23 at 06:37

-2

I recommend

git clone --depth 1 git@github.com:etlegacy/etlegacy.git --tags 2.80.2 --single-branch

edited Feb 13 '23 at 06:37

Yunnosch

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answered Feb 12 '23 at 12:08

Eric Petit

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Why does this work? I cannot find any documentation on this --tags option. Are you sure that's not just ignored? – Sarien Feb 14 '23 at 13:24
Well just try the command and check the results, anyway, on Linux, use auto completion show --tag option – Eric Petit Feb 15 '23 at 15:50
I tried. It doesn't work. – Sarien Feb 15 '23 at 16:36
strange, it worked for me last week – Eric Petit Feb 16 '23 at 18:03

How to clone a specific Git tag

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