cloninator: A CLI Tool to Manage Your Repos

cloninator is a command-line tool that manages Git repositories through YAML configuration. Define your repositories once, then clone them all with a single command. Perfect for setting up development environments across multiple machines or managing large collections of repositories.

Features

• Bulk cloning: Clone all configured repositories with one command
• Multiple remotes: Automatically configure origin, upstream, and other remotes
• Post-checkout automation: Run setup commands after cloning (e.g., pip install, npm install)
• Nested organization: Mirror your desired directory structure in config
• Split configurations: Organize configs across multiple files (personal, work, etc.)
• Config generation: Scan existing repos to auto-generate configuration
• Idempotent: Safe to run repeatedly; skips already-cloned repos

Quick Start

1. Install

uv tool install --python 3.13 cloninator

2. Configure

Create ~/.config/cloninator/config.yaml:

/root: ~/projects

personal:
    myproject:
        /remotes:
            - name: origin
              url: git@github.com:user/myproject.git

work:
    company-repo:
        /remotes:
            - name: origin
              url: git@gitlab.com:company/repo.git
            - name: upstream
              url: git@gitlab.com:upstream/repo.git
        /post_checkout:
            - pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Clone

cloninator clone

Commands

• clone: Clone all repositories from configuration
• generate: Scan existing repos and generate configuration

See the Usage Guide for detailed examples and workflows.

Documentation

• Installation Guide
• Usage Guide
• Changelog
• Code of Conduct
• License