Checkout branch from Github without cloning whole repo, and without Git

Question

I'm often building servers where the goal is to install some software that is stored in Github. The process goes:

1. Install Git.
2. Clone the Github repo.
3. Checkout the right branch.

Steps 1 and 2 can be pretty slow (a few minutes). Are there any tools that would allow me to cut to the chase, step 3? I'm thinking something like:

1. Get gitcheckout tool (bash script)
2. It directly pulls down the relevant files from the right branch in Github.

Answer 1

If you want to use git and if your git is new enough to have --single-branch:

git clone --single-branch --branch=<branch> --depth=1

Otherwise, you can download the source in a zip:

wget https://github.com/<user>/<project>/archive/<branch>.zip

Answer 2

curl or wget:

curl -o foo.zip https://github.com/<user>/<project>/archive/<branch>.zip
wget https://github.com/<user>/<project>/archive/<branch>.zip

that said, in my experience, installing git only takes a few seconds

Answer 3

1. You could get a tarball using the GitHub API, and then you could get a branch and extract it in one go:

   curl -u USER:TOKEN https://api.github.com/repos/USER/REPO/tarball/BRANCH -L | tar zt
   

   You can create your token following the steps on this page. It's easy enough to do.

2. Or you could get a sub-directory using svn:

   svn checkout https://github.com/USER/REPO/branches/BRANCH/subdir/you/want
   

The good thing about both solutions is that they don't download the full history, only the snapshot of the latest state.