Deprecation Notice: Future of git-shallow-clone-orb

[guitarrapc]

Official annoucement had been added to CircleCI Ideas "Allow for Shallow Clone command in 2.0" which states that a blobless clone is planned. This is great news for all CircleCI users, including those using this orb.

I very much welcome the new checkout functionality. Once it reaches GA and becomes stable, this repository may be deprecated. Until then, I will continue to maintain this orb and may add other checkout options, such as sparse checkout. Let’s wait for further updates.

Thank you to everyone.
Best,

[guitarrapc]

Deprecation Notice

This repository will be deprecated and archived on 2025-12-31 09:00 JST (UTC+9).
After that date, no further updates or maintenance will be provided.

Please migrate your checkout step from this repository’s shallow clone implementation to CircleCI’s official blobless clone feature.

Background

On September 18, 2025, CircleCI officially released a new
faster checkout option that supports blobless clone.

With this official support in place, this repository’s shallow clone functionality is no longer necessary.

How to use Blobless Clone on CircleCI

You can enable blobless clone by setting the method key in your checkout step.

jobs:
  build:
    steps:
      - checkout:
          method: blobless # <- here!

What is a Blobless Clone?

A blobless clone fetches the entire commit history while deferring file contents (blobs) until they are actually needed.　Because blobless clone provides better flexibility and efficiency, we strongly recommend switching from shallow clone to blobless clone.

Blobless clone

• Keeps full commit history
• Downloads file contents only on demand
• Minimizes initial network transfer

Shallow clone

• Limits commit history
• Downloads all file contents upfront
• Can restrict Git operations

Thank you to everyone who used, tested, and contributed to this repository.