Git clone (download) any sub-directories of any GitHub repository (at any reference) without having to clone the entire repository, with only its GitHub URL. Uses the GitHub API to recursively clone the sub-directories tree and files.

I often find myself wanting to only download a certain directory, path or package of an especially big repo that I'm currently viewing (without even cloning the entire repo at depth 1) and to do so by simply copy & pasting the GitHub URL so that's why. Probably more instances where this might come in handy ;)

The GitHub API imposes a rate limiting of up to 60 requests per hour applies but can be increased to up to 5000 requests per hour using an OAuth token (to get one see https://help.github.com/en/articles/creating-a-personal-access-token-for-the-command-line).

GitHub clone makes an initial request to fetch repo metadata and then, a request for every subfolder in the repo. The requests to download the files within the folders are not counted against the rate limit so in most cases (i.e. the folder/repo you're trying to clone has less than 60 subfolders) the rate limit should not be a problem.

To clone private repositories you need to supply an OAuth token for an account with access to the private repository (to get one see https://help.github.com/en/articles/creating-a-personal-access-token-for-the-command-line).

Available on PyPi https://pypi.org/project/github-clone/.

Install the script via pip:

pip install github-clone

or via pipsi:

pipsi install github-clone

Uses Python 3.3+

GitHub clone (git.io/ghclone)

Usage:
  ghclone <url> [-t | --token=<token>]
  ghclone (-h | --help)
  ghclone (-v | --version)

Examples:
  ghclone https://github.com/HR/Crypter/tree/master/app
  ghclone https://github.com/HR/Crypter/tree/dev/app
  ghclone https://github.com/HR/Crypter/tree/v3.1.0/build
  ghclone https://github.com/HR/Crypter/tree/cbee54dd720bb8aaa3a2111fcec667ca5f700510/build
  ghclone https://github.com/HR/Picturesque/tree/master/app/src -t li50d67757gm20556d53f08126215725a698560b

Options:
  -h --help           Show this screen.
  -v --version        Show version.
  -t --token=<token>  Set a GitHub OAuth token (see https://developer.github.com/v3/#rate-limiting).

Copyright (C) 2019-2021 Habib Rehman (https://git.io/HR)

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.