Cool! Why you gotta tease me like this without busting out a one liner? :)

Gemini disagrees with you btw:

Unfortunately, directly combining git shallow clone and git partial checkout to grab just one specific file isn't straightforward. Here's why:

Shallow clone: This limits the downloaded commit history to a specific depth, but it still fetches all files involved in those commits. While reducing data, it wouldn't restrict files solely based on your needs.

Partial checkout: This lets you specify which files to include in your working directory, but it requires a full clone initially.

However, you have a few alternative approaches to achieve your goal:

1. Shallow clone + Sparse checkout:

Use git clone --depth=<commit_depth> --single-branch=<branch> to shallow clone the specific branch and limit history. Create a .git/info/sparse-checkout file containing only the path to the desired file. Run git read-tree -u to update the index based on the sparse-checkout file. This method downloads a limited history and only keeps the specified file in your working directory.

2. Partial clone with server support (limited availability):

Check if the server supports partial clones (currently implemented on Github and some Gitlab self-hosted instances).

Use git clone --filter=blob:none <url> for a "blobless" clone that only contains file content, no history or directory structure.

Add the desired file path to the .git/info/sparse-checkout file and run git read-tree -u as before.

This approach minimizes downloaded data but requires server support and won't work everywhere.