Module 09 of 10 · clone · fork · upstream

Cloning & Forking

git clone — Copy a Repository

Cloning downloads an entire repository (all files, all history) to your local machine:

git clone https://github.com/user/repo.git

This creates a folder named repo in your current directory, pre-configured with origin pointing back to GitHub.

Clone into a custom folder name:

git clone https://github.com/user/repo.git my-custom-folder

What Cloning Gives You

• All files from the default branch
• The entire commit history
• origin remote already configured
• Local tracking branches for all remote branches

Forking — Contributing to Open Source

If you want to contribute to a repository you don't own, you can't push to it directly. Instead you fork it — create your own copy of the repo under your GitHub account.

1. 1
   Go to any GitHub repo and click Fork (top right). GitHub creates your-username/repo.
2. 2
   Clone your fork to your machine: git clone https://github.com/your-username/repo.git
3. 3
   Add the original repo as a second remote called upstream: git remote add upstream https://github.com/original-owner/repo.git
4. 4
   Create a branch, make your changes, push to your fork, then open a Pull Request.

Keeping Your Fork Up to Date

The original project may have new commits. Pull them into your local main, then push to your fork:

git fetch upstream
git switch main
git merge upstream/main
git push origin main