Clone remote repository using local cache
Let's say you want a new clone of a git repository, for example https://go.googlesource.com/go, but you already have it cloned elsewhere, say $HOME/go and you don't want to download all the objects from the internet, yet you don't want to clone the local repository either — you want the new clone to be connected to the remote repository.
You can do this:
git clone --reference-if-able $HOME/go --dissociate https://go.googlesource.com/go go.test
This will work even if $HOME/go doesn't exist.
Only clone a specific branch
git clone --single-branch -b release-branch.go1.17 https://go.googlesource.com/go go.test
And if you don't want tags either:
git clone --single-branch -b release-branch.go1.17 --no-tags https://go.googlesource.com/go go.test