Pronounced [gore-guh]; similar to gorge. You can use ghorg to gorge on orgs.
Use ghorg to quickly clone all of an orgs, or users repos into a single directory. This can be useful in many situations including
- Searching an orgs/users codebase with ack, silver searcher, grep etc..
- Bash scripting
- Creating backups
- Onboarding new team members (cloning all team repos)
- Performing Audits
With default configuration ghorg performs two actions.
- Will clone a repo if its not inside the clone directory.
- If repo does exists locally in the clone directory it will perform a git pull and git clean on the repo.
So when running ghorg a second time on the same org/user, all local changes in the cloned directory by default will be overwritten by what's on GitHub. If you want to work out of this directory, make sure you either rename the directory or set the
--no-cleanflag on all future clones to prevent losing your changes locally.
- GitHub (Self Hosted & Cloud)
- GitLab (Self Hosted & Cloud)
- Bitbucket (Cloud & Self-hosted Server)
- Gitea (Self Hosted Only)
- Sourcehut (Limited Features)
The terminology used in ghorg is that of GitHub, mainly orgs/repos. GitLab and BitBucket use different terminology. There is a handy chart thanks to GitLab that translates terminology here. Note, some features may be different for certain providers.
- Filter or select specific repositories for cloning
- Create backups of repositories
- Simplify complex clone commands using reclone shortcuts
- Initiate clone operations via HTTP server
- Schedule cloning tasks using cron
- Monitor and track clone metrics o 10000 ver time
There are a installation methods available, please choose the one that suits your fancy:
For each installation method, optionally create a ghorg configuration file. See the configuration section for more details.
mkdir -p $HOME/.config/ghorg
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gabrie30/ghorg/master/sample-conf.yaml > $HOME/.config/ghorg/conf.yaml
vi $HOME/.config/ghorg/conf.yaml # To update your configurationSee latest release to download directly for
- Mac (Darwin)
- Windows
- Linux
If you don't know which to choose its likely going to be the x86_64 version for your operating system.
brew install gabrie30/utils/ghorgIf you are an enthusiast user of Mise, the polyglot tool versions manager, you can use such command to install the latest version of ghorg on Linux/MacOS/Windows:
mise use -g ghorg@latest# ensure $HOME/go/bin is in your path ($ echo $PATH | grep $HOME/go/bin)
# if using go 1.16+ locally
go install github.com/gabrie30/ghorg@latest
# older go versions can run
go get github.com/gabrie30/ghorgPrecedence for configuration is first given to the flags set on the command-line, then to what's set in your $HOME/.config/ghorg/conf.yaml. This file comes from the sample-conf.yaml and can be installed by performing the following.
mkdir -p $HOME/.config/ghorg
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gabrie30/ghorg/master/sample-conf.yaml > $HOME/.config/ghorg/conf.yaml
vi $HOME/.config/ghorg/conf.yaml # To update your configurationIf no configuration file is found ghorg will use its defaults and try to clone a GitHub Org, however an api token is always required.
You can have multiple configuration files which is useful if you clone from multiple SCM providers with different tokens and settings. Alternative configuration files can only be referenced as a command-line flag --config.
If you have multiple different orgs/users/configurations to clone see the ghorg reclone command as a way to manage them.
Note: ghorg will respect the XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable if set.
Note: if you are running into issues, read the troubleshooting and known issues section below
- Create Personal Access Token with all
reposcopes. UpdateGHORG_GITHUB_TOKENin yourghorg/conf.yamlor as a cli flag or place it in a file and add the path toGHORG_GITHUB_TOKEN. If your org has Saml SSO in front you will need to give your token those permissions as well, see this doc. - For cloning GitHub Enterprise (self hosted github instances) repos you must set
--base-urle.g.ghorg clone <github_org> --base-url=https://internal.github.com - See examples/github.md on how to run
- Create a GitHub App in your Organization. You only need to fill out the required fields. Make sure to give Repository Permissions -> contents -> read only permissions
- Install the GitHub App into your Organization
- Generate a a private key from the GitHub App, set the location of the key to
GHORG_GITHUB_APP_PEM_PATH - Locate the GitHub App ID from the GitHub App, set the value to
GHORG_GITHUB_APP_ID - Locate the GitHub Installation ID from the URL of the GitHub app, set the value to
GHORG_GITHUB_APP_INSTALLATION_ID. NOTE: you will need to use the actual GitHub url to get this ID, go to your GitHub Organization Settings Page -> Third Party Access -> GitHub Apps -> Configure -> Get ID from URL
- Create Personal Access Token with the
read_apiscope (orapifor self-managed GitLab older than 12.10). This token can be added to yourghorg/conf.yamlor as a cli flag. - Update the
GitLab Specificconfig in yourghorg/conf.yamlor via cli flags or place it in a file and add the path toGHORG_GITLAB_TOKEN - Update
GHORG_SCM_TYPEtogitlabin yourghorg/conf.yamlor via cli flags - See examples/gitlab.md on how to run
- Create Access Token (Settings -> Applications -> Generate Token)
- Update
GHORG_GITEA_TOKENin yourghorg/conf.yamlor use the (--token, -t) flag or place it in a file and add the path toGHORG_GITEA_TOKEN. - Update
GHORG_SCM_TYPEtogiteain yourghorg/conf.yamlor via cli flags - See examples/gitea.md on how to run
- Create a Personal Access Token. Click "Limit scope of access grant", check "Generate read-only access token", then ctrl-click the REPOSITORIES and OBJECTS permissions.
- Ensure you have added an SSH key if you want to clone private repos (sourcehut does not accept PATs in https URLs)
- Update
GHORG_SOURCEHUT_TOKENin yourghorg/conf.yamlor use the (--token, -t) flag or place it in a file and add the path toGHORG_SOURCEHUT_TOKEN. - Update
GHORG_SCM_TYPEtosourcehutin yourghorg/conf.yamlor via cli flags
Note on usernames: You can specify sourcehut usernames with or without the
~prefix (e.g., bothghorg clone usernameandghorg clone ~usernamework). Local folder paths will never include the~prefix to avoid shell expansion issues.
For detailed examples, API limitations, and sourcehut-specific features, see examples/sourcehut.md
Note: ghorg supports both Bitbucket Cloud and Bitbucket Server (self-hosted instances)
Bitbucket has deprecated App Passwords in favor of API Tokens. This is the recommended authentication method for Bitbucket Cloud.
- Create an API token from your Atlassian account settings
- Important: When creating the token, grant all read scopes (Account: Read, Workspace membership: Read, Projects: Read, Repositories: Read, etc.) to ensure ghorg can list and clone repositories
- Set
GHORG_BITBUCKET_API_TOKENin your$HOME/.config/ghorg/conf.yamlor use the--tokenflag - Set
GHORG_BITBUCKET_API_EMAILto your Atlassian account email (or use--bitbucket-api-email) - Update SCM type to
bitbucketin yourghorg/conf.yamlor via cli flags - See examples/bitbucket.md on how to run
Note: When using API tokens, ghorg automatically uses
x-bitbucket-api-token-authas the Git username for clone operations, as required by Bitbucket's API token authentication.
Note: Bitbucket has deprecated App Passwords. Consider using API Tokens instead.
- Create a PAT
- Set the token with
GHORG_BITBUCKET_OAUTH_TOKENin your$HOME/.config/ghorg/conf.yamlor using the--tokenflag. Make sure you do not have--bitbucket-usernameset. - Update SCM TYPE to
bitbucketin yourghorg/conf.yamlor via cli flags - See examples/bitbucket.md on how to run
- To configure with Bitbucket Server you will need to provide your instance URL via
GHORG_SCM_BASE_URLin your$HOME/.config/ghorg/conf.yamlor use the--base-urlflag. - Create credentials (username/password or app password) and update your configuration or use the
--bitbucket-usernameand--tokenflags. - For insecure connections (HTTP), set
GHORG_INSECURE_BITBUCKET_CLIENT=true - Update SCM type to
bitbucketin yourghorg/conf.yamlor via cli flags - See examples/bitbucket.md on how to run
See examples directory for more SCM specific docs or use the examples command e.g. ghorg examples gitlab
$ ghorg clone kubernetes --token=bGVhdmUgYSBjb21tZW50IG9uIGlzc3VlIDY2
# Example how to use --token with a file path
$ ghorg clone kubernetes --token=~/.config/ghorg/gitlab-token.txt
$ ghorg clone davecheney --clone-type=user --token=bGVhdmUgYSBjb21tZW50IG9uIGlzc3VlIDY2
$ ghorg clone gitlab-examples --scm=gitlab --preserve-dir --token=bGVhdmUgYSBjb21tZW50IG9uIGlzc3VlIDY2
$ ghorg clone gitlab-examples/wayne-enterprises --scm=gitlab --token=bGVhdmUgYSBjb21tZW50IG9uIGlzc3VlIDY2
$ ghorg clone all-groups --scm=gitlab --base-url=https://gitlab.internal.yourcompany.com --preserve-dir
$ ghorg clone --help
# view cloned resources
$ ghorg ls
$ ghorg ls someorg
$ ghorg ls someorg | xargs -I %s mv %s bar/-
By default ghorg will clone the org or user repos into a directory like
$HOME/ghorg/org. If you want to clone the org to a different directory use the--pathflag or setGHORG_ABSOLUTE_PATH_TO_CLONE_TOin your ghorg conf. This value must be an absolute path. For example if you wanted to clone the kubernetes org to/tmp/ghorgyou would run the following command.$ ghorg clone kubernetes --path=/tmp/ghorgwhich would create...
/tmp/ghorg └── kubernetes ├── apimachinery ├── gengo ├── git-sync ├── kubeadm ├── kubernetes-template-project ├── ... -
If you want to change the name of the directory the repos get cloned into, set the
GHORG_OUTPUT_DIRin your ghorg conf or set the--output-dirflag. For example to clone only the repos starting withsig-from the kubernetes org into a direcotry calledkubernetes-sig-only. You would run the following command.$ ghorg clone kubernetes --match-regex=^sig- --output-dir=kubernetes-sig-onlywhich would create...
$HOME/ghorg └── kubernetes-sig-only ├── sig-release ├── sig-security └── sig-testing
-
To only clone repos that match regex use
--match-regexflag or exclude cloning repos that match regex with--exclude-match-regex -
To only clone repos that match prefix(s) use
--match-prefixflag or exclude cloning repos that match prefix(s) with--exclude-match-prefix -
To filter out any archived repos while cloning use the
--skip-archivedflag (not bitbucket) -
To filter out any forked repos while cloning use the
--skip-forksflag -
Filter by specific repo topics
GHORG_TOPICSor--topicswill clone only repos with a matching topic. GitHub/GitLab/Gitea only -
To clone a specific set of repositories, create a file listing the names of these repositories, one per line. Then, use the
GHORG_TARGET_REPOSor--target-repos-pathflag to specify the path to this file. -
To exclude specific repositories from being cloned, you can create a
ghorgignorefile in the$HOME/.config/ghorgdirectory. Each line in this file should contain a unique identifier of the repository, which is considered a substring. This substring is then compared against each repository's clone URL during the cloning process. If the clone URL contains the substring listed in theghorgignorefile, that repository will be skipped and not cloned. To avoid unintentionally excluding a repository, ensure that each line in theghorgignorefile is as specific as possible. For instance, you could usehttps://github.com/gabrie30/ghorg.gitorgit@github.com:gabrie30/ghorg.git, depending on your cloning method. This feature is particularly useful for permanently excluding certain repositories from the cloning process. If you wish to use multipleghorgignorefiles or store them in a different location, you can use the--ghorgignore-pathflag to specify an alternative path.# Create ghorgignore touch $HOME/.config/ghorg/ghorgignore # Update file vi $HOME/.config/ghorg/ghorgignore
-
To clone only specific repositories matching certain patterns, you can create a
ghorgonlyfile in the$HOME/.config/ghorgdirectory. Each line in this file should contain a substring pattern. Only repositories whose clone URLs contain these patterns will be cloned. This is useful when you want to clone a specific subset of repositories from a large organization. Theghorgonlyfilter is applied first, followed byghorgignore, allowing you to combine both for fine-grained control (e.g., clone onlyapi-*repos but excludeapi-legacy). Likeghorgignore, you can specify an alternative path using the--ghorgonly-pathflag.# Create ghorgonly touch $HOME/.config/ghorg/ghorgonly # Update file with patterns (one per line) vi $HOME/.config/ghorg/ghorgonly
When taking backups the notable flags are --backup, --clone-wiki, and --include-submodules. The --backup flag will clone the repo with git clone --mirror. The --clone-wiki flag will include any wiki pages the repo has. If you want to include any submodules you will need --include-submodules. Lastly, if you want to exclude any binary files use the the flag --git-filter=blob:none to prevent them from being cloned.
ghorg clone kubernetes --backup --clone-wiki --include-submodules
This will create a kubernetes_backup directory for the org. Each folder inside will contain the .git contents for the source repo. To restore the code from the .git contents you would move all contents into a .git dir, then run git init inside the dir, then checkout branch e.g.
# inside kubernetes_backup dir, to restore kubelet source code
cd kubelet
mkdir .git
mv -f * .git # moves all contents into .git directory
git init
git checkout masterThe ghorg reclone command is a way to store all your ghorg clone commands in one configuration file and makes calling long or multiple ghorg clone commands easier.
Once your reclone.yaml configuration is set you can call ghorg reclone to clone each entry individually or clone all at once, see examples below.
Each reclone entry can have:
cmd: The ghorg clone command to execute (required)description: A description of what the command does (optional)post_exec_script: Path to a script that will be called after the clone command finishes (optional). The script will always be called, regardless of success or failure, and receives two arguments: the status (successorfail) and the name of the reclone entry. This allows you to implement custom notifications, monitoring, or other automation (optional)
Example reclone.yaml entry:
gitlab-examples:
cmd: "ghorg clone gitlab-examples --scm=gitlab --token=XXXXXXX"
post_exec_script: "/path/to/notify.sh"Example script for post_exec_script (e.g. /path/to/notify.sh):
#!/bin/sh
STATUS="$1"
NAME="$2"
if [ "$STATUS" = "success" ]; then
# Success webhook
curl -fsS https://hc-ping.com/your-uuid-here
else
# Failure webhook
curl -fsS https://hc-ping.com/your-uuid-here/fail
fi# To clone all the entries in your reclone.yaml omit any arguments
ghorg reclone
# To run one or more entries you can pass arguments
ghorg reclone kubernetes-sig-staging kubernetes-sig
# To view all your reclone commands
# NOTE: This command prints tokens to stdout
ghorg reclone --list
Add a reclone.yaml to your $HOME/.config/ghorg directory. You can use the following command to set it for you with examples to use as a template
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gabrie30/ghorg/master/sample-reclone.yaml > $HOME/.config/ghorg/reclone.yaml
Update file with the commands you wish to run.
The reclone-server command starts a server that allows you to trigger ad hoc reclone commands via HTTP requests.
ghorg reclone-server [flags]--port: Specify the port on which the server will run. If not specified, the server will use the default port.
-
/trigger/reclone: Triggers the reclone command. To prevent resource exhaustion, only one request can processed at a time.- Query Parameters:
cmd: Optional. Allows you to call a specific reclone, otherwise all reclones are ran.
- Responses:
200 OK: Command started successfully.429 Too Many Requests: Server is currently running a reclone command, you will need to wait until its completed before starting another one.
- Query Parameters:
-
/stats: Returns the statistics of the reclone operations in JSON format.GHORG_STATS_ENABLED=trueor--stats-enabledmust be set to work.- Responses:
200 OK: Statistics returned successfully.428 Precondition required: Ghorg stats is not enabled.500 Internal Server Error: Unable to read the statistics file.
- Responses:
-
/health: Health check endpoint.- Responses:
200 OK: Server is healthy.
- Responses:
Starting the server. The default port is 8080 but you can optionally start the server on different port using the --port flag:
ghorg reclone-serverTrigger reclone command, this will run all cmds defined in your reclone.yaml:
curl "http://localhost:8080/trigger/reclone"Trigger a specific reclone command:
curl "http://localhost:8080/trigger/reclone?cmd=your-reclone-command"Get the statistics:
curl "http://localhost:8080/stats"Check the server health:
curl "http://localhost:8080/health"The reclone-cron command sets up a simple cron job that triggers the reclone command at specified minute intervals indefinitely.
ghorg reclone-cron [flags]--minutes: Specify the interval in minutes at which the reclone command will be triggered. Default is every 60 minutes.
Set up a cron job to trigger the reclone command every day:
ghorg reclone-cron --minutes 1440GHORG_CRON_TIMER_MINUTES: The interval in minutes for the cron job. This can be set via the--minutesflag. Default is 60 minutes.
The provided images are built for both amd64 and arm64 architectures and are available solely on Github Container Registry ghcr.io.
# Should print help message
# You can also specify a version as the tag, such as ghcr.io/gabrie30/ghorg:v1.9.9
docker run --rm ghcr.io/gabrie30/ghorg:latestNote: There are also tags available for the latest on trunk, such as
masterormaster-<commit SHA 7 chars>, but these are not recommended.
The commands for ghorg are parsed as docker commands. The entrypoint is the ghorg binary, hence you only need to enter remaining arguments as follows:
docker run --rm ghcr.io/gabrie30/ghorg \
clone kubernetes --token=bGVhdmUgYSBjb21tZW50IG9uIGlzc3VlIDY2The image ships with the following environment variables set:
GHORG_CONFIG=/config/conf.yaml
GHORG_RECLONE_PATH=/config/reclone.yaml
GHORG_ABSOLUTE_PATH_TO_CLONE_TO=/dataThese can be overriden, if necessary, by including the -e flag to the docker run comand, e.g. -e GHORG_GITHUB_TOKEN=bGVhdmUgYSBjb21tZW50IG9uIGlzc3VlIDY2.
In order to store data on the host, it is required to bind mount a volume:
$HOME/.config/ghorg:/config: Mounts your config directory inside the container, to accessconfig.yamlandreclone.yaml.$HOME/repositories:/data: Mounts your local data directory inside the container, where repos will be downloaded by default.
docker run --rm \
-e GHORG_GITHUB_TOKEN=bGVhdmUgYSBjb21tZW50IG9uIGlzc3VlIDY2 \
-v $HOME/.config/ghorg:/config `# optional` \
-v $HOME/repositories:/data \
ghcr.io/gabrie30/ghorg:latest \
clone kubernetes --match-regex=^sigNote: Altering
GHORG_ABSOLUTE_PATH_TO_CLONE_TOwill require changing the mount location from/datato the new location inside the container.
A shell alias might make this more practical:
alias ghorg="docker run --rm -v $HOME/.config/ghorg:/config -v $HOME/repositories:/data ghcr.io/gabrie30/ghorg:latest"
# Using the alias: creates and cleans up the container
ghorg clone kubernetes --match-regex=^sigTo track data on your clones over time, you can use the ghorg stats feature. It is recommended to enable ghorg stats in your configuration file by setting GHORG_STATS_ENABLED=true. This ensures that each clone operation is logged automatically without needing to set the command line flag --stats-enabled every time. The ghorg stats feature is disabled by default and needs to be enabled.
When ghorg stats is enabled, the CSV file _ghorg_stats.csv is created in the directory specified by GHORG_ABSOLUTE_PATH_TO_CLONE_TO. This file contains detailed information about each clone operation, which is useful for auditing and tracking purposes such as the size of the clone and the number of new commits over time.
Below are the headers and their descriptions. Note that these headers may change over time. If there are any changes in the headers, a new file named _ghorg_stats_new_header_${sha256HashOfHeader}.csv will be created to prevent incorrect data from being added to your CSV.
- datetime: Date and time of the clone in YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss format
- clonePath: Location of the clone directory
- scm: Name of the source control used
- cloneType: Either user or org clone
- cloneTarget: What is specified after the clone command
ghorg clone <target> - totalCount: Total number of resources expected to be cloned or pulled
- newClonesCount: Sum of all new repos cloned
- existingResourcesPulledCount: Sum of all repos that were pulled
- dirSizeInMB: The size in megabytes of the output dir
- newCommits: Sum of all new commits in all repos pulled
- cloneInfosCount: Number of clone Info messages
- cloneErrorsCount: Number of clone Issues/Errors
- updateRemoteCount: Number of remotes updated
- pruneCount: Number of repos pruned
- hasCollisions: If there were any name collisions, only can happen with gitlab clones
- ghorgignore: If a ghorgignore was used in the clone
- ghorgonly: If a ghorgonly was used in the clone
- totalDurationSeconds: Total time in seconds for the entire clone operation
- ghorgVersion: Version of ghorg used in the clone
go install github.com/gabrie30/csvToJson@latest && \
csvToJson _ghorg_stats.csvWindows is supported when built with golang or as a prebuilt binary however, the readme and other documentation is not geared towards Windows users.
Alternatively, Windows users can also install ghorg using scoop
scoop bucket add main
scoop install ghorg
- If you are having trouble cloning repos. Try to clone one of the repos locally e.g. manually running
git clone https://github.com/your_private_org/your_private_repo.gitif this does not work, ghorg will also not work. Your git client must first be setup to clone the target repos. If you normally clone using an ssh key use the--protocol=sshflag with ghorg. This will fetch the ssh clone urls instead of the https clone urls. - If you are cloning a large org you may see
Error: open /dev/null: too many open fileswhich means you need to increase your ulimits, there are lots of docs online for this. Another solution is to decrease the number of concurrent clones. Use the--concurrencyflag to set to lower than 25 (the default) - If your GitHub org is behind SSO, you will need to authorize your token, see here
- If your GitHub Personal Access Token is only finding public repos, give your token all the repos permissions
- Make sure your
$ git --versionis >= 2.19.0 - Check for other software, such as anti-malware, that could interfere with ghorgs ability to create large number of connections, see issue 132. You can also lower the concurrency with
--concurrency=ndefault is 25. - To debug yourself you can call ghorg with the GHORG_DEBUG=true env e.g
GHORG_DEBUG=true ghorg clone kubernetes. Note, when this env is set concurrency is set to a value of 1 and will expose the api key used to stdout. - If you've gotten this far and still have an issue feel free to raise an issue
- If you’re cloning using https, but you have submodules which are configured to use ssh, you can force git to pull these submodules as well via https by running these commands before running ghorg:
git config --global url."https://github.com/".insteadOf git@github.com: git config --global credential.https://github.com/.helper '! f() { echo username=x-access-token; echo password=$GHORG_GITHUB_TOKEN; };f'