Is it possible to do a sparse checkout without checking out the whole repository first?

Question

I\'m working with a repository with a very large number of files that takes hours to checkout. I\'m looking into the possibility of whether Git would work well with this kin

Answer 1

In git 2.27, it looks like git sparse checkout has evolved. Solution in this answer does not work exactly the same way (compared to git 2.25)

git clone  --no-checkout 
cd 
git sparse-checkout init --cone # to fetch only root files
git sparse-checkout set apps/my_app libs/my_lib # etc, to list sub-folders to checkout
# they are checked out immediately after this command, no need to run git pull

These commands worked better:

git clone --sparse  
cd 
git sparse-checkout init --cone # to fetch only root files
git sparse-checkout add apps/my_app
git sparse-checkout add libs/my_lib

See also : git-clone --sparse and git-sparse-checkout add