gh-get — download a single GitHub folder (no git, no clone)

Grab one folder out of any GitHub repo without cloning the whole thing. No git, no gh CLI, no account required for public repos. The folder remembers where it came from, so you can re-pull the latest content later with gh-get update.

A single, dependency-free, cross-platform Go binary (Windows, Linux, macOS — amd64 & arm64). Self-installs onto your PATH with gh-get --install, no admin needed.

gh-get https://github.com/owner/repo/tree/main/path/to/folder

Why?

git clone pulls the entire history of an entire repository when all you wanted was one directory. gh-get fetches just that folder — minimally, over the GitHub API + raw.githubusercontent.com, with a tarball fallback for big ones.

Built for AI coding agents. Agent runtimes increasingly ship reusable skills, prompts, MCP servers, and tool folders inside larger monorepos. gh-get lets an agent (or you) pull a single skill folder into a workspace in one command — no clone, no submodules, no token for public repos — and gh-get update re-syncs it when upstream changes. Handy for Claude Code, Cursor, OpenClaw / OpenCode, and any agent that loads skills or tools from GitHub.

# Drop a single "handoff" skill folder into your agent's skills directory
gh-get https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/productivity/handoff

Usage

gh-get <github-folder-url> [destination] [--force] [--ref REF] [--token TOKEN]
gh-get update [--ref REF]
gh-get --install
gh-get --version | --help

Install

Download the binary for your platform from the Releases page, then let it install itself onto your PATH — no admin/root required:

# from wherever you unpacked it
./gh-get --install        # Linux/macOS
.\gh-get.exe --install    # Windows (PowerShell)

This copies the binary to a per-user directory and ensures it's on your PATH:

Platform	Installed to	PATH
Windows	%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\gh-get\	added to your user PATH automatically
Linux	~/.local/bin/	already on PATH on most distros
macOS	~/.local/bin/	added manually if not present (instructions printed)

Open a new terminal afterwards, then run gh-get --version from anywhere.

Examples

# Download into ./handoff
gh-get https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/productivity/handoff

# Custom destination, overwrite if it exists
gh-get https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/productivity/handoff ./handoff --force

# Download into the current directory (in place); existing files with the
# same name are overwritten, everything else is left untouched
gh-get https://github.com/OWNER/REPO .

# Later, from inside the folder, re-pull the latest content
cd ./handoff
gh-get update

When the destination is . (or any path resolving to the current directory), gh-get writes the files in place instead of creating a subfolder, and never deletes the directory. As a safeguard, --force refuses to overwrite a destination that contains the current working directory (e.g. ..).

Choosing a branch, tag or commit

The ref normally comes from the URL (tree/<ref>/...). Use --ref (alias --branch) to override it, or to switch an already-downloaded folder:

# Same folder, but from the dev branch instead of what the URL says
gh-get https://github.com/owner/repo/tree/main/skills/handoff --ref dev

# Switch an installed folder to a tag (rewrites .gh-get-source)
cd ./handoff
gh-get update --ref v2.0.0

URLs may use tree or blob, branch names containing / are resolved automatically, and pointing at the repo root downloads the whole repo:

https://github.com/OWNER/REPO                       (whole repo, default branch)
https://github.com/OWNER/REPO/tree/BRANCH           (whole repo at BRANCH)
https://github.com/OWNER/REPO/tree/BRANCH/PATH/TO/FOLDER
https://github.com/OWNER/REPO/blob/feature/x/PATH/TO/FOLDER

How it works

• Minimal download (default): lists the folder via the GitHub Trees API and fetches each file from raw.githubusercontent.com — only that folder's files.
• Tarball fallback: for large folders (> 40 files), truncated trees, or when the anonymous rate limit is hit, it downloads the repo tarball in one request and extracts only the target folder.
• update: stores the commit SHA in .gh-get-source; on update it skips the download when nothing changed, otherwise overwrites the folder (no merge — the folder is treated as installed content).

Authentication

Optional. A token raises the rate limit (60 → 5000 req/h) and enables private repos. Resolution order: --token flag → $GITHUB_TOKEN → $GH_TOKEN → gh auth token (if the GitHub CLI is installed and logged in). The last step means that if you already ran gh auth login, gh-get picks up that token automatically — no env var needed.

Build

go build -o gh-get .
# with version stamping:
go build -ldflags "-X main.version=v1.0.0" -o gh-get .

Status

v0.1.0: full CLI with unit tests, self-install, and a CI cross-compile release workflow publishing binaries for all six platform/arch targets. Deferred: winget (portable) manifest and a Homebrew tap. See CONTEXT.md for the full design decisions.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

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