userclone

Clone your entire GitHub/GitLab setup — personal repos and org repos — in one command.

Perfect for onboarding to a new device.

Install

npm install -g @cj-ways/userclone

Or download a binary from Releases.

Quick Start

userclone clone

The interactive wizard walks you through:

1. Platform — GitHub or GitLab
2. Authentication — auto-detects gh CLI token, or OAuth device flow, or paste manually
3. Destination — Desktop (default) or custom path
4. Folder name — "GitHub User", your display name, or custom
5. Visibility — All, public only, or private only
6. Scope — Everything, personal only, orgs only, or pick manually
7. Structure — Separated (orgs alongside) or Grouped (everything nested)
8. Summary — Review and confirm before cloning

Wizard Example

? Which platform? GitHub
  Found token from GitHub CLI (gh)
  Authenticated as Saba Janelidze (@sabajanelidze)

? Where to clone? Desktop (~/Desktop)
? Folder name for your repos? Saba Janelidze
? Which repos? All repos

Fetching repos...
  Found 23 personal repos, 35 repos across 3 orgs

? What to clone? Everything (23 personal + 35 from 3 orgs)
? Folder structure? Separated — orgs alongside, personal in "Saba Janelidze/"

━━ Summary ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Platform:    GitHub
User:        Saba Janelidze (@sabajanelidze)
Path:        ~/Desktop
Folder:      Saba Janelidze
Repos:       58 (23 personal + 35 from 3 orgs)
Visibility:  All
Structure:   Separated

? Show full repo list? No
? Proceed? Yes

Directory Layout

Separated (default)

Orgs sit alongside the personal folder:

~/Desktop/
├── Saba Janelidze/        <- personal repos
│   ├── repo-1/
│   └── repo-2/
├── cj-ways/               <- org repos
│   └── org-repo-1/
└── another-org/
    └── org-repo-2/

Grouped

Everything under one folder:

~/Desktop/Saba Janelidze/
├── repo-1/                <- personal repos
├── repo-2/
├── cj-ways/               <- org repos nested inside
│   └── org-repo-1/
└── another-org/
    └── org-repo-2/

Flags (Shortcuts)

Flags skip wizard steps. Provide all flags for fully non-interactive usage.

Flag	Short	Description
--token	-t	GitHub/GitLab personal access token
--dest	-d	Base destination directory (legacy mode, no folder name)
--with-orgs		Clone repos from all orgs
--org	-o	Clone specific org(s) only (repeatable)
--only-orgs		Skip personal repos
--exclude	-e	Comma-separated repo names to skip
--skip-archived		Skip archived repos
--skip-forks		Skip forked repos
--private-only		Only private repos
--public-only		Only public repos
--pick		Interactive checkbox selection
--dry-run		Preview without cloning
--flat		No org grouping, everything in dest root
--gitlab		Use GitLab instead of GitHub
--gitlab-url		Self-hosted GitLab URL

Non-Interactive Examples

# Clone personal repos only (old behavior)
userclone clone --token ghp_xxx --dest ~/Desktop

# Clone everything including orgs
userclone clone --token ghp_xxx --dest ~/Desktop --with-orgs

# Only public repos from a specific org
userclone clone --token ghp_xxx --dest ~/Projects --org cj-ways --public-only

# Preview what would be cloned
userclone clone --dry-run

Authentication

Token is resolved in this order:

1. --token flag
2. ~/.userclone.yml config file
3. Environment variable (GITHUB_TOKEN / GITLAB_TOKEN)
4. gh CLI / glab CLI (auto-detected)
5. OAuth Device Flow (GitHub — requires registered OAuth App)
6. Manual paste (interactive prompt)

Tokens obtained interactively can be saved to ~/.userclone.yml for future use.

Config

userclone init

Creates ~/.userclone.yml:

default_dest: ~/Desktop
default_platform: github
with_orgs: false

github:
  token: ghp_xxx               # or set GITHUB_TOKEN env var

gitlab:
  token: glpat_xxx              # or set GITLAB_TOKEN env var
  url: https://gitlab.com

exclude:
  - dotfiles
  - old-project

orgs:
  my-org:
    exclude:
      - legacy-repo

Set defaults quickly:

userclone default platform github
userclone default dest ~/Projects
userclone default with-orgs true

Token Scopes

GitHub: repo (full control of private repositories)

GitLab: read_api (read access to the API)

License

MIT