git - How to update a file in remote repo, without cloning that repo first?

Question

Is there a way to push a commit to a remote git repo, without first making a local clone of that repo?

I have a valid URL for the remote repo, I know the path of the file, and all I want to do is push an updated version of the file onto the master. Ideally I'd like this to work with any valid remote repo URL, but it would still be helpful if it worked only with https-based git URLs.

I'm guessing this is impossible, since it does not seem to be possible even to retrieve a single file without cloning in the general case, according to the answer How to "git show" on a remote repo? . But I'm hoping there's a workaround that uses some of the lower level git commands.

Answer 1

Impossible. But since a prospective commit would just need to have one single commit as its parent it's possible to employ the so-called "shallow cloning" and fetch just the tip commit of the branch you need. This will bring only a minimum amount of objects from the remote. Look for the --depth command-line option of git clone.