[git] How to clone git repository with specific revision/changeset?

How can I clone git repository with specific revision, something like I usually do in Mercurial:

hg clone -r 3 /path/to/repository

# clone special tag/branch without history
git clone  --branch=<tag/branch> --depth=1 <repository>


# clone special revision with minimal histories
git clone --branch <branch> <repository> --shallow-since=yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss  # get the commit time
cd <dir>
git reset --hard <revision> 

you can't get a revision without histories if not set uploadpack.allowReachableSHA1InWant=true on server side, while you can create a tag for it and clone the special tag instead.

$ git clone $URL
$ cd $PROJECT_NAME
$ git reset --hard $SHA1

To again go back to the most recent commit

$ git pull

Cloning a git repository, aptly, clones the entire repository: there isn't a way to select only one revision to clone. However, once you perform git clone, you can checkout a specific revision by doing checkout <rev>.

I use this snippet with GNU make to close any revision tag, branch or hash

it was tested on git version 2.17.1

${dir}:
    mkdir -p ${@D}
    git clone --recursive --depth 1 --branch ${revison} ${url} ${@} \
 || git clone --recursive --branch ${revison} ${url} ${@} \
 || git clone ${url} ${@}
    cd ${@} && git reset --hard ${revison}
    ls $@

TL;DR - Just create a tag in the source repository against the commit you want to clone up to and use the tag in the fetch command. You can delete the tag from the original repo later to clean up.

Well, its 2014 and it looks like Charles Bailey's accepted answer from 2010 is well and truly outdated by now and most (all?) of the other answers involve cloning, which many people are hoping to avoid.

The following solution achieves what the OP and many others are looking for, which is a way to create a copy of a repository, including history, but only up to a certain commit.

Here are the commands I used with git version 2.1.2 to clone a local repo (ie. a repository in another directory) up to a certain point:

# in the source repository, create a tag against the commit you want to check out
git tag -m "Temporary tag" tmptag <sha1>

# create a new directory and change into that directory
cd somewhere_else;mkdir newdir;cd newdir

# ...and create a new repository
git init

# add the source repository as a remote (this can be a URL or a directory)
git remote add origin /path/to/original/repo

# fetch the tag, which will include the entire repo and history up to that point
git fetch origin refs/tags/tmptag

# reset the head of the repository
git reset --hard FETCH_HEAD

# you can now change back to the original repository and remove the temporary tag
cd original_repo
git tag -d tmptag

Hopefully this solution keeps working for a few more years! :-)

You Can use simply git checkout <commit hash>

in this sequence

bash git clone [URLTORepository] git checkout [commithash]

commit hash looks like this "45ef55ac20ce2389c9180658fdba35f4a663d204"

Its simple. You just have to set the upstream for the current branch

$ git clone repo
$ git checkout -b newbranch
$ git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/branch newbranch
$ git pull

That's all

Just to sum things up (git v. 1.7.2.1):

1. do a regular git clone where you want the repo (gets everything to date — I know, not what is wanted, we're getting there)
2. git checkout <sha1 rev> of the rev you want
3. git reset --hard
4. git checkout -b master

If you mean you want to fetch everything from the beginning up to a particular point, Charles Bailey's answer is perfect. If you want to do the reverse and retrieve a subset of the history going back from the current date, you can use git clone --depth [N] where N is the number of revs of history you want. However:

--depth

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.

My version was a combination of accepted and most upvoted answers. But it's a little bit different, because everyone uses SHA1 but nobody tells you how to get it

$ git init
$ git remote add <remote_url>
$ git fetch --all

now you can see all branches & commits

$ git branch -a
$ git log remotes/origin/master <-- or any other branch

Finally you know SHA1 of desired commit

git reset --hard <sha1>

Using 2 of the above answers (How to clone git repository with specific revision/changeset? and How to clone git repository with specific revision/changeset?) Helped me to come up with a definative. If you want to clone up to a point, then that point has to be a tag/branch not simply an SHA or the FETCH_HEAD gets confused. Following the git fetch set, if you use a branch or tag name, you get a response, if you simply use an SHA-1 you get not response.
Here's what I did:- create a full working clone of the full repo, from the actual origin

cd <path to create repo>
git clone git@<our gitlab server>:ui-developers/ui.git 

Then create a local branch, at the point that's interesting

git checkout 2050c8829c67f04b0db81e6247bb589c950afb14
git checkout -b origin_point

Then create my new blank repo, with my local copy as its origin

cd <path to create repo>
mkdir reduced-repo
cd reduced-repo
git init
git remote add local_copy <path to create repo>/ui
git fetch local_copy origin_point

At that point I got this response. I note it because if you use a SHA-1 in place of the branch above, nothing happens, so the response, means it worked

/var/www/html/ui-hacking$ git fetch local_copy origin_point
remote: Counting objects: 45493, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (15928/15928), done.
remote: Total 45493 (delta 27508), reused 45387 (delta 27463)
Receiving objects: 100% (45493/45493), 53.64 MiB | 50.59 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (27508/27508), done.
From /var/www/html/ui
 * branch            origin_point -> FETCH_HEAD
 * [new branch]      origin_point -> origin/origin_point

Now in my case, I then needed to put that back onto gitlab, as a fresh repo so I did

git remote add origin git@<our gitlab server>:ui-developers/new-ui.git

Which meant I could rebuild my repo from the origin_point by using git --git-dir=../ui/.git format-patch -k -1 --stdout <sha1> | git am -3 -k to cherry pick remotely then use git push origin to upload the whole lot back to its new home.

Hope that helps someone

git clone https://github.com/ORGANIZATION/repository.git (clone the repository)

cd repository (navigate to the repository)

git fetch origin 2600f4f928773d79164964137d514b85400b09b2

git checkout FETCH_HEAD

git clone -o <sha1-of-the-commit> <repository-url> <local-dir-name>

git uses the word origin in stead of popularly known revision

Following is a snippet from the manual $ git help clone

--origin <name>, -o <name>
    Instead of using the remote name origin to keep track of the upstream repository, use <name>.

To clone only one single specific commit on a particular branch or tag use:

git clone --depth=1 --branch NAME https://github.com/your/repo.git

Unfortunately, NAME can only be branch name or tag name (not commit SHA).

Omit the --depth flag to download the whole history and then checkout that branch or tag:

git clone --branch NAME https://github.com/your/repo.git

This works with recent version of git (I did it with version 2.18.0).