Download GitHub repository, not a GIT clone command! This was the answer to a problem I was having, creating a skeleton app structure and easily setting up a local file structure. For example, obtaining the src directory from https://github.com/kamalgill/flask-appengine-template. This is a work in progress, not the prettiest of things.

ghget.py

'''
c:\local\dev>python ghget.py -h
usage: ghget.py [-h] -u USER -r REPO [-b BRANCH] [-s SUB] [-p PATH] [-v]

GitHub repository downloader.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -u USER, --user USER  github user (required)
  -r REPO, --repo REPO  github repository (required)
  -b BRANCH, --branch BRANCH
                        repository branch, default master
  -s SUB, --sub SUB     repository subdirectory
  -p PATH, --path PATH  local path, default cwd
  -v, --verbose
'''

'''
c:\local\dev>python ghget.py -u kamalgill -r flask-appengine-template -p ./PROJECT -s src

Creates local structure, c:\local\dev\PROJECT, and extracts everything from the ./src/
folder of the repository.
'''

import argparse
import os
import re
import requests
import sys
import StringIO
import zipfile


parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
    formatter_class=argparse.RawDescriptionHelpFormatter,
    description='GitHub repository downloader.'
)

parser.add_argument('-u', '--user', type=str, dest='user', required=True,
                    help='github user (required)')
parser.add_argument('-r', '--repo', type=str, dest='repo', required=True,
                    help='github repository (required)')
parser.add_argument('-b', '--branch', type=str, dest='branch', default='master',
                    help='repository branch, default master')
parser.add_argument('-s', '--sub', type=str, dest='sub',
                    help='repository subdirectory')
parser.add_argument('-p', '--path', type=str, dest='path', default='.',
                    help='local path, default cwd')
parser.add_argument('-v', '--verbose', dest='verbose', action='store_true')

args = parser.parse_args(sys.argv[1:])


def main():
    path = os.path.abspath(args.path)
    if args.path != '.':
        if not os.path.exists(path):
            os.mkdir(path)

    repo = 'https://github.com/{0}/{1}/archive/{2}.zip'.format(args.user,
                                                               args.repo,
                                                               args.branch)

    result = requests.get(repo)
    if not result.ok:
        print 'Repository archive not found.'
        print '- {0}'.format(repo)
        exit()

    zip_file = zipfile.ZipFile(StringIO.StringIO(result.content))

    root = '{0}-{1}'.format(args.repo, args.branch)

    if args.sub:
        sub_dir = '/'.join([root, args.sub, ''])
        if not sub_dir in zip_file.namelist():
            print './{0}/ is an invalid directory.'.format(args.sub)
            exit()
        plen = len('/'.join([root, args.sub])) + 1
        files = [i for i in zip_file.namelist() if i.startswith(sub_dir)]
    else:
        plen = len(root) + 1
        files = zip_file.namelist()

    for item in files:
        d, f = os.path.split(item)
        if f == '':
            dpath = os.path.join(path, d[plen:])
            if not os.path.exists(dpath):
                if args.verbose:
                    print 'Creating:', dpath
                os.mkdir(dpath)
        else:
            fpath = os.path.join(path, d[plen:], f)
            with open(fpath, 'wb') as fp:
                if args.verbose:
                    print 'Creating:', fpath
                fp.write(zip_file.read(item))

    zip_file.close()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()