Is it possible to create a new git repository from a template only using the command line?

Question

Creating a new repo using another as a template is a great function, but I can only see how to use this ability on github.com. Can it be done entirely from command line? Perhaps without a remote?

I would like to use templates for a user to intialise a repo to store their secrets in, and it may not even require a remote, but its very important that it isn't connected to the original template repo for privacy. The .gitignore file and the folder tree provided are the most important functions that I'm hoping to provide the user with this ability.

Answer 1

June 2020: Since a template repository such as this one is a GitHub repository, you can:

• clone it
• as commented remove the .git folder
• git init .
• git add .
• git commit -m "First commit"
• create a new empty repository on GitHub using the new gh CLI: gh repo create
• git push -u origin master

That way, everything is done form the command line.

---

Update Sept. 2020: the other approach through the GitHub CLI tool gh, and mentions in Ben Gubler's answer, stems from PR 1590: "Create repositories from a template repo" from Mislav Marohnić and Colin Shum.
(merged in commit 99372f0)

gh repo create <new-repo-name> --template="<link-to-template-repo>"
# OR
gh repo create <new-repo-name> --template="<owner/template-repo>"

Answer 2

Try gh repo create myrepo --template someuser/sometemplate