How to fix fatal: Server does not support partial clone in Git

First, check if the server advertises partial clone support by inspecting its capabilities:

# Check what capabilities the server advertises
git ls-remote --heads <repository-url> 2>&1 | head -20

# For more detailed capability information, use GIT_TRACE
GIT_TRACE_PACKET=1 git ls-remote <repository-url> 2>&1 | grep -i filter

If you don't see "filter" in the advertised capabilities, the server doesn't support partial clone.

The simplest workaround is to remove the --filter option and perform a standard full clone:

# Instead of partial clone
# git clone --filter=blob:none https://git.example.com/repo.git

# Use a regular clone
git clone https://git.example.com/repo.git

This downloads all objects but ensures compatibility with any Git server.

Shallow clone is an older feature with broader server support. It limits history rather than filtering object types:

# Clone only the most recent commit
git clone --depth 1 https://git.example.com/repo.git

# Clone with limited history (last 10 commits)
git clone --depth 10 https://git.example.com/repo.git

# If you need full history later, you can unshallow
cd repo
git fetch --unshallow

Shallow clones have been supported since Git 1.5 and work with virtually all Git servers.

If you have access to the server or can request changes from administrators, partial clone can be enabled with:

# On the Git server, enable partial clone support
git config --global uploadpack.allowFilter true

# Optionally, allow specific filter types
git config --global uploadpack.allowAnySHA1InWant true

For Gitea servers (1.16+), partial clone is enabled by default. For older versions or explicit configuration:

# In app.ini for Gitea
[git]
DISABLE_PARTIAL_CLONE = false

For GitLab self-hosted, ensure you're running GitLab 12.4+ with Git 2.22+ on the server.

Partial clone has specific version requirements on both client and server:

Server Requirements:
- Git 2.18+ for basic partial clone support
- Git 2.20+ for tree filters (--filter=tree:0)
- Git 2.22+ for optimal performance

Platform-Specific Support:
- GitHub.com: Fully supported
- GitHub Enterprise Server: 2.22+
- GitLab.com: Fully supported
- GitLab Self-Managed: 12.4+ with Git 2.22+
- Bitbucket Cloud: Fully supported (as of 2021)
- Bitbucket Data Center: 7.13+
- Azure DevOps: Supported (blobless clones only)
- Gitea: 1.16+ (enabled by default)
- Gogs: Not supported

Check your server version:

# For GitHub Enterprise, GitLab, etc., check the server's Git version
# This is usually shown in the admin panel or via API

If the primary server doesn't support partial clone, consider using a mirror that does:

# If your repo is mirrored on GitHub, clone from there
git clone --filter=blob:none https://github.com/org/repo.git

# Then add the original remote for pushing
cd repo
git remote add upstream https://internal-git.example.com/org/repo.git
git remote set-url --push origin https://internal-git.example.com/org/repo.git

This gives you the benefits of partial clone while still being able to push to your main server.

If you only need specific directories, sparse checkout can reduce disk usage without requiring server-side partial clone support:

# Clone with no checkout initially
git clone --no-checkout https://git.example.com/repo.git
cd repo

# Enable sparse checkout
git sparse-checkout init --cone

# Specify which directories you need
git sparse-checkout set src/frontend docs

# Now checkout - only specified directories are populated
git checkout main

This still downloads all Git objects but only populates specified directories in your working tree.