repos clone

repos clone reads your repos.list file and clones all listed repositories into the parent directory of your current location. It is the simplest way to get started — no GitHub account or token required for public repositories.

Basic Usage

repos clone

Options

Flag	Description
-f <file>	Use a different list file (default: repos.list)

# Use a custom list file
repos clone -f my-repos.list

Repository Layout

Repositories are cloned to the parent of your current directory:

workspace/
├── my-project/          # your project (contains repos.list)
├── backend/             # cloned from myorg/backend
├── frontend-develop/    # cloned from myorg/frontend@develop
└── docs/                # cloned from myorg/docs

What’s in repos.list?

repos.list lists the repositories (and optionally branches) to clone. See the repos.list reference for the full format, including cloning specific branches, creating worktrees, and setting per-repo visibility.

GitHub Authentication

For private repositories, provide a GitHub token:

export GH_TOKEN="your_personal_access_token"
# or
gh auth login

Public repositories can be cloned without any token.

Going further

repos clone only clones repositories. For IDE integration, two additional commands are available:

• Generate a VS Code workspace: repos workspace
• Configure GitHub Codespaces authentication: repos codespace

→ VS Code integration