Utilities

Miscellaneous utility commands for working with repositories.

• Init (hug init)
  • Basic Usage
  • Features
  • Examples
• Clone (hug clone)
  • Basic Usage
  • Features
  • Examples
  • Command Reference
  • Tips
• Other Utilities
  • Untrack (hug untrack)
  • Type and Dump
  • WIP Management

Init (hug init)

Initialize a new Git or Mercurial repository. Defaults to Git.

Basic Usage

# Initialize Git repo in current directory
hug init

# Initialize Git repo in new directory
hug init my-project

# Initialize with specific VCS
hug init --git
hug init --hg

# Skip post-init status display
hug init --no-status

# Pass options to underlying VCS
hug init --initial-branch=main
hug init my-project --bare

Features

Defaults to Git

By default, hug init creates a Git repository. This makes it quick and easy to get started without specifying flags:

hug init my-new-project

Force Specific VCS

Use --git or --hg to explicitly choose the version control system:

# Git (explicit)
hug init --git my-git-repo

# Mercurial
hug init --hg my-hg-repo

Post-Init Status

By default, Hug provides helpful information after initialization. For empty repositories, it shows a friendly message:

$ hug init my-repo
ℹ️ Info: Initializing Git repository...
✅ Success: ✓ Initialized Git repository in 'my-repo'.
ℹ️ Info: Empty repository. Create your first commit to see status.

Use --no-status to skip this behavior, useful for scripts:

hug init --no-status my-repo

Safety Features

Prevents Re-initialization: Hug checks if a repository already exists and prevents accidental re-initialization:

$ hug init
❌ Error: Already a Git repository.

Directory Creation: If the specified directory doesn't exist, Hug creates it for you:

hug init path/to/my-project

Examples

Basic Git initialization:

hug init

Initialize in new directory:

hug init my-awesome-project
cd my-awesome-project

Initialize with custom branch name:

hug init --initial-branch=main my-project

Initialize bare repository:

hug init --bare my-bare-repo.git

Initialize Mercurial repository:

hug init --hg my-hg-project

Script-friendly (no status output):

hug init --no-status project1
hug init --no-status project2

Clone (hug clone)

Clone a Git or Mercurial repository with automatic VCS detection.

Basic Usage

# Auto-detect VCS from URL
hug clone https://github.com/user/repo.git

# Clone to specific directory
hug clone https://gitlab.com/user/repo.git my-project

# Force specific VCS
hug clone --git https://example.com/repo
hug clone --hg https://hg.example.com/repo

# Skip post-clone status display
hug clone --no-status https://github.com/user/repo.git

# Pass options to underlying VCS
hug clone https://github.com/user/repo.git --depth 1
hug clone https://github.com/user/repo.git --branch develop

Features

Automatic VCS Detection

Hug automatically detects whether a repository is Git or Mercurial based on URL patterns:

Git Detection:

• URLs ending with .git
• GitHub URLs (github.com)
• GitLab URLs (gitlab.com)
• Bitbucket Git URLs
• Gitea instances
• Codeberg URLs

Mercurial Detection:

• URLs ending with .hg
• URLs containing hg. in the domain

If the VCS cannot be determined automatically, Hug will prompt you to choose.

Safety Features

Directory Existence Check: If the target directory already exists, Hug will prompt for confirmation before overwriting:

$ hug clone https://github.com/user/repo.git existing-dir
Directory 'existing-dir' exists. Overwrite? (y/N)

Cleanup on Failure: If a clone operation fails (e.g., network error, invalid repository), Hug automatically cleans up any partially cloned directory.

Post-Clone Status

By default, Hug runs hug s after a successful clone to show you the repository status. This gives you immediate feedback about the cloned repository's state.

Use --no-status to skip this behavior, useful for scripts or when cloning multiple repositories:

hug clone --no-status https://github.com/user/repo1.git
hug clone --no-status https://github.com/user/repo2.git

Examples

Clone from GitHub:

hug clone https://github.com/torvalds/linux.git

Clone to specific directory:

hug clone https://github.com/rust-lang/rust.git rust-compiler

Shallow clone (faster for large repos):

hug clone https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes.git --depth 1

Clone specific branch:

hug clone https://github.com/user/repo.git --branch develop

Clone with SSH:

hug clone git@github.com:user/private-repo.git

Force Mercurial:

hug clone --hg https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central

Command Reference

Usage: hug clone [--git|--hg] [--no-status] <url> [dir] [options]

Options:
  --git         Force Git as the VCS
  --hg          Force Mercurial as the VCS
  --no-status   Skip post-clone status display

Arguments:
  <url>         Repository URL to clone
  [dir]         Target directory (optional, defaults to repository name)
  [options]     Additional options passed to underlying VCS

Tips

Working with Large Repositories

For large repositories, consider using --depth 1 to create a shallow clone:

hug clone https://github.com/large/repo.git --depth 1

This downloads only the latest commit, significantly reducing clone time and disk space.

Script-Friendly Cloning

When writing scripts, use --no-status to avoid interactive output:

#!/bin/bash
for repo in repo1 repo2 repo3; do
  hug clone --no-status "https://github.com/org/$repo.git"
done

Authentication

Hug passes through authentication prompts from the underlying VCS. For automated workflows, configure SSH keys or credential helpers:

# Configure SSH key
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_email@example.com"
# Add to GitHub/GitLab

# Or use credential helper
git config --global credential.helper store

Other Utilities

Untrack (hug untrack)

Stop tracking files but keep them locally. Useful for files that should be ignored but were already committed.

hug untrack config/secrets.yml

Type and Dump

Inspect Git objects directly:

# Show object type
hug type HEAD
hug type a1b2c3d

# Show object contents
hug dump HEAD
hug dump a1b2c3d

WIP Management

See Working Directory Commands for WIP (Work In Progress) branch management commands.