git-clone –mirror

git provides an argument to set up the repository as a mirror, which involves setting the refspec to one which copies all refs and a mirror option for push in the remote.

$ git clone --mirror https://github.com/libgit2/pygit2

def init_remote(repo, name, url):
    # Create the remote with a mirroring url
    remote = repo.remotes.create(name, url, "+refs/*:refs/*")
    # And set the configuration option to true for the push command
    mirror_var = "remote.{}.mirror".format(name.decode())
    repo.config[mirror_var] = True
    # Return the remote, which pygit2 will use to perform the clone
    return remote

print("Cloning pygit2 as mirror")
pygit2.clone_repository("https://github.com/libgit2/pygit2", "pygit2.git", bare=True,
                        remote=init_remote)