Bash script to create new GitHub repository from template

Question

I'm writing a bash script that can initialize a new repository from a GitHub template that I've already created. I'd like the script to replicate the steps laid out in this GitHub help doc, but I can't figure out how to use GitHub templates from the command line.

I'm using Ubuntu 18.04 on WSL2. I've defined a function project() (see below) that takes one input (the name of the new project) and is supposed to do the following:

1. cd to my home directory
2. call a python script create_project.py that creates the new project's folders locally and creates the remote repo on GitHub
3. cd to the new project's local directory
4. initialize a repo from my template
5. connect to my remote repo on GitHub (made in step 2)
6. add
7. commit
8. push

#!/bin/bash
function project() {
    cd /home/levicrews
    python3 create_project.py $1
    cd /home/levicrews/$1
    git init --template=</home/levicrews/template-project>
    git remote add origin git@github.com:levicrews/$1.git
    git add .
    git commit -m "Initial commit"
    git push -u origin master
}

import sys
import os
from github import Github

path = "/home/levicrews/"

username = "" #Insert your github username here
password = "" #Insert your github password here

def create_project():
    folderName = str(sys.argv[1])
    os.makedirs(path + str(sys.argv[1]))
    user = Github(username, password).get_user()
    repo = user.create_repo(sys.argv[1])
    print("Succesfully created repository {}".format(sys.argv[1]))

if __name__ == "__main__":
    create_project()

Unfortunately, all my template files end up in the /.git directory of the new repo (from reading the docs on git init, I realize now that that's the expected behavior of the --template flag). What changes can I make to my scripts to replicate the "Use this template" behavior from GitHub?

Answer 1

If template-project is not a git repository, you can just copy it before you init:

#!/bin/bash
function project() {
    cd /home/levicrews
    cp -a /home/levicrews/template-project $1
    python3 create_project.py $1
    cd /home/levicrews/$1
    git init
    git remote add origin git@github.com:levicrews/$1.git
    git add .
    git commit -m "Initial commit"
    git push -u origin master
}

If template-project already has a .git dir, you will need to remove it:

#!/bin/bash
function project() {
    cd /home/levicrews
    cp -a /home/levicrews/template-project $1
    rm $1/.git
    python3 create_project.py $1
    cd /home/levicrews/$1
    git init
    git remote add origin git@github.com:levicrews/$1.git
    git add .
    git commit -m "Initial commit"
    git push -u origin master
}

If the git history is large, copying to .git and removing the .git folder again will be inefficient. You could use the following hack:

git archive --format=tar --remote=/home/levicrews/template-project master | tar xf -