thesa

thesa is a Rust CLI that clones public GitHub repositories for a person, organization, or a single repository.

Install

cargo install --path .

From crates.io after publishing:

cargo install thesa

Then run:

thesa

Or force the interactive TUI explicitly:

thesa --tui

Short form:

thesa -T

Usage

thesa [TARGET] [options]

Run with no arguments for interactive mode.

Use --tui or -T to force interactive mode. If TARGET is also passed, the TUI flag takes precedence and opens the TUI prompt instead.

TARGET can be one of: owner, owner/repo, https://github.com/owner, https://github.com/owner/repo.

For model mode, TARGET can also be presets:

• top (most downloaded)
• latest (most recently updated)

For model mode, set --mode models and choose one provider:

• --provider hf (Hugging Face, default)
• --provider ollama (local Ollama instance)
• --provider civitai (CivitAI)

In interactive/TUI model mode, provider selection appears before the model target prompt.

Common options:

• --depth <DEPTH>: clone with commit depth
• -c, --concurrency <N>: number of repos cloned in parallel (default 4)
• --filter <PATTERN>: filter repository names by substring
• --skip-existing: skip repos that are already present
• --token <TOKEN>: GitHub API token (or use GITHUB_TOKEN env)
• --hf-token <TOKEN>: Hugging Face API token (or use HF_TOKEN env)
• --civitai-token <TOKEN>: CivitAI API token (or use CIVITAI_TOKEN env)
• --hf-mirror: use hf-mirror.com for Hugging Face API calls
• --provider <PROVIDER>: model provider for model mode (hf, ollama, civitai)
• -T, --tui: force the interactive Scrin interface

Repo picker controls (TTY only):

• Space: check or uncheck a repo
• a: check all visible repos
• c: clear filter and checks
• b: open batch-size overlay (1, 2, 3, 6, 8)
• PageUp/PageDown: move cursor by one viewport page
• Home/End: jump to first/last visible result
• Enter: clone checked repos only, or visible repos when nothing is checked

Clone dashboard controls (TTY only):

• t: toggle repository detail lines in the live batch display
• q: request stop after current batch completes
• m: Matrix effect
• b: Burn effect
• w: Wipe effect

TTY clone runs use a Scrin dashboard. Aisling renders the Matrix/Burn/Wipe effect pane and the TQDM-style loader rows for concurrent repository pulls.

Examples:

• Start TUI and pick target/repo interactively:
  • thesa
  • thesa --tui
  • thesa -T
• Clone one repo:
  • thesa torvalds/linux --output ./repos
• Clone all public repos for a user/org with shallow history:
  • thesa octocat --output ./repos --depth 1
• Clone with explicit concurrency:
  • thesa octocat --concurrency 8 --output ./repos
• Preview actions before cloning:
  • thesa org-name --dry-run
• Models and providers:
  • thesa --mode models --provider hf meta-llama --dry-run
  • thesa --mode models --provider hf meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct --dry-run
  • thesa --mode models --provider ollama llama3 --dry-run
  • thesa --mode models --provider hf top --dry-run
  • thesa --mode models --provider hf latest --dry-run
  • thesa --mode models --provider ollama top --dry-run
  • thesa --mode models --provider ollama latest --dry-run
  • thesa --mode models --provider civitai top --dry-run
  • thesa --mode models --provider civitai latest --dry-run
  • thesa --mode models --provider civitai 827184 --dry-run

Scripts

You can compile and run with helper scripts:

• Run from repo root (interactive target prompt):

  • ./run.sh

• Pass a target directly:

  • ./run.sh <target> [output-root] [concurrency] [extra thesa flags]

• Compile only:

  • ./scripts/compile.sh

• Compile and run (default concurrency 4):

  • ./scripts/run.sh <target> [output-root] [concurrency] [extra thesa flags excluding --output]

• Publish release to crates.io:

  • ./scripts/publish.sh --allow-dirty
  • ./scripts/publish.sh --dry-run (safe checks only)

run.sh creates an output folder from the target name (for example owner or, for owner/repo, just repo) and runs clones inside that folder.

Notes

• --concurrency sets the concurrent clone batch size.
• private repositories are intentionally skipped/blocked.