~/repo is still empty
What do you mean by this? If you mean there is no source code inside it, then yes, a bare repository will not contain working copies of your source files.
The repo's file folder is "~/repo" , I used "git init --bare" at "~/repo/.git" and then did nothing
If you did this, then strictly, ~/repo
is not the bare repository but ~/repo/.git
.
By convention, bare repository directories end in .git, so you'd better do
git init --bare ~/repo.git
instead, then ~/repo.git
is your bare repository.