Is it possible to do a git clone using Magit in a directory which is not under version control?

Question

Suppose I am in a folder called local-projects. Using the terminal, I can do:

[pedro@system:~/quicklisp/local-projects]$ pwd

/home/pedro/quicklisp/local-projects

An important information to highlight is that local-projects folder is not under git control. Even so and still using the terminal, I can do:

[pedro@system:~/quicklisp/local-projects]$ git clone [email protected]:muyinliu/jsown-utils.git

This works, Ok.

So, I wished I could do git clone using Magit great interface. There is a command for C (capitalized C) which is to clone.

Thus, using dired I decide to go to the folder ~/quicklisp/local-projects. But, when I execute the command to invoke Magit with magit-status, Magit asks me the following:

Create repository in /home/pedro/quicklisp/local-projects/? (y or n)

I answer n. In shell, there is no such a question. Not sure if I missed something, but it seems inappropriate to answer y, thus, I choose n.

Did I miss something?

Is it possible to achieve the same result as git clone ... in shell using Magit [1] ?

[1] - By the same result I am including the side effects of the process.

Answer 1

I think the problem is that you are doing magit-status, presumably so you can use the C binding to do the clone. But the doc for magit-status says:

If the current directory isn’t located within a Git repository, then prompt for an existing repository or an arbitrary directory, depending on option ‘magit-repository-directories’, and show the status of the selected repository instead.

If you did M-x magit-clone directly (i.e. what C is bound to in magit-mode-map), then you won't get the question.