Download from Git


 * Since MediaWiki 1.19beta2, 1.18.2, 1.17.3, MediaWiki core and extensions use gerrit>Special:MyLanguage/Gerrit|Git for version control. For older versions, see svn>Special:MyLanguage/Subversion|Subversion

Git is distributed version control software that allows users to download the very latest version of a branch, without having to wait for someone to get around to packaging it. MediaWiki will release faster, and it'll be easier for you to update your installation, roll back an upgrade, or [https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ submit patches]. (Of course always remember official stable releases are less risky.)

See Git for more details, particularly for making contributions. Below are some quick directions for a couple common tasks.

Prerequisites
You must have Git installed before you can use it. There are many different ways to acquire Git, depending on your operating system. For source and official binaries, check out [http://git-scm.com/ git-scm.com]. For alternative ways to install Git, use your favorite search engine to find instructions for your operating system.

It is recommended that you have composer installed to download and install third party libraries, but not required.

Download
You can download MediaWiki core using Git, as well as all extensions currently installed on the Wikimedia Foundation server cluster and many other extensions hosted on .

The first step is to clone the MediaWiki core repository. This will take a while.

In a terminal window, enter the following command:

This clones the entire MediaWiki core repository, initially pointed at release branch, into a sub-directory named.

To install into different directory, change that in the command line (for more info refer to these docs). Once the repository is cloned, you can easily switch to different branches or tags (see below), including those tracking unstable versions of MediaWiki. The development branch,, is the cutting-edge, developer version of MediaWiki; you should not use master code for production under any circumstances as it is not considered stable.

If you want to reduce the number of revisions that are cloned, add  to the above command.

That the release branches have a bunch of Git submodules in them, for commonly-used extensions and skins (the master branch does not have these). To update the submodules, run:

Download for development
If you have dev>Special:MyLanguage/Developer access</>|Developer access (which is easy to request), then instead of cloning anonymously with https you should clone with your ssh <USERNAME> so that you can submit changes for review:



Fetch external libraries
Starting with MediaWiki 1.25, some external libraries that MediaWiki requires are no longer in this "core" git repository.

We use composer to manage them.

To install these needed libraries, you have a choice:

Note that if you have an existing <tvar|lock> </> file you will need to run <tvar|update> </> instead.
 * [<tvar|url-c>https://getcomposer.org/doc/00-intro.md#globally</> Download and install composer], switch to your core directory and then run <tvar|code> </>.


 * If you don't want to use composer, or if you want to use the same set of vendor libraries as used on the WMF production cluster, you can instead <tvar|git> </> to create a <tvar|vendor> </> directory inside the core folder of your MediaWiki installation.

MediaWiki tags (stable version)
Alternatively, specific stable versions of MediaWiki are tracked using 'tags'. These are analogous to the tarball releases. You can see the versions available with:

Using non GNU sort command, such as on Mac OS X, you have to rely on the good old separators:

To use a specific tag:

Latest development version of MediaWiki
The latest development version of MediaWiki is tracked in the 'master' branch. This is what is locally checked out by default when you first clone the MediaWiki repository. If you have switched to another branch but would like to switch back to using bleeding-edge MediaWiki, do:

Keeping up to date
If you're using a particular branch or the development version ("master" branch) of MediaWiki, picking up the latest changes is relatively easy. Change into your MediaWiki clone directory and issue the  command:

All of the latest changes for the branch you are using will be applied.

The new version of core may require newer versions of extensions and skins, so you must go into each extension and skin directory and update it with a command like.

After updating/upgrading you should run the MediaWiki <tvar|update> </> command-line script to update database tables as needed:

You also need to update  to any newer versions of required libraries, see.

If you use MediaWiki-Vagrant, it offers a single command,, that performs all these steps.

Switching to a different version
Switching to a different version of MediaWiki is far simpler with Git than with SVN. Each of our versions are tracked as branches or tags. In order to switch to one of these, all you have to do is [<tvar|url>https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Branching-Basic-Branching-and-Merging</> checkout] the particular branch or tag you want from within your MediaWiki clone directory:

or

The changes will be applied automatically and you will be all set to go.

Using Git to download MediaWiki extensions

 * [<tvar|url>https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/admin/projects/?filter=mediawiki%252Fextensions%252F</> List of extensions in git]

Download an extension

 * <EXT> should be replaced with the name of the extension you want to download, without spaces. For ext-titlekey>Special:MyLanguage/Extension:TitleKey</>|Extension:TitleKey, it would be TitleKey. (case sensitive!)

Download and clone an extension from Git:

Developers clone with:

You can view extension source code in Gerrit's gitiles application, and at the URL:

<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/g/mediawiki/extensions/<EXT>/+/refs/heads/master

Download all extensions
If you prefer to have all MediaWiki extensions that are at <tvar|gerrit>gerrit.wikimedia.org</> checked out to your machine, enter the following:

Thereafter, to update all extensions to their latest versions of that branch, just enter:

To change to a different branch, such as after a new release:

Remember that you should only use versions of extensions from the same release as that version of MediaWiki and each other.

To track the master branch:

Please note that you should not use master code for production under any circumstances as it is not considered stable.

If you only need a read-only checkout (for instance to grep or analyse all MediaWiki code), you can use the 1>wikitech:Help:Shared_storage#/shared/mediawiki/</>|shared MediaWiki checkout on Labs, without downloading anything on your machines.

Remove an extension
Just remove the extension folder and remove the "<tvar|code> </>" or "<tvar|code2> </>" from <tvar|LocalSettings> </>.

Using Git to download MediaWiki skins

 * [<tvar|url>https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/admin/projects/?filter=mediawiki%252Fskins%252F</> List of skins in git]

MediaWiki 1.24 and later don't include skins in the Git download.

Follow the exact same procedure as for extensions (described in the previous section), but using  rather than   in all URLs and paths.

Detailed installation instructions are available on each skin's page here on MediaWiki.org, for example see vector>Special:MyLanguage/Skin:Vector#Installation</>|Skin:Vector#Installation. Instructions for all other skins are analogous.