Download from Git

Git is a distributed version control system. It allows you to download the very latest version of the source code, with all the branches and tagged releases at your disposal.

You should download from Git if you are a developer and want to 1>Special:MyLanguage/Gerrit/Tutorial|submit patches.

If you do not want to develop but only install MediaWiki and extensions, then 1>Download|download stable tarball releases instead.

See 1>Special:MyLanguage/Gerrit|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. Follow 1>Special:MyLanguage/Gerrit/Tutorial#Set up Git|Gerrit/Tutorial#Set up Git, or use your favorite search engine.

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.

Download for development
The latest development version of MediaWiki is tracked in the 'master' branch.

First make sure that you have created a dev>Special:MyLanguage/Developer account|developer account, so that you have an ssh username.

Then, in a terminal window, enter the following command to clone with your ssh  so that you can submit patches for review:

This clones the entire MediaWiki core repository, synced to the master branch, into a sub-directory named  .

To install into different directory, change that in the command line (for more info [https://git-scm.com/docs/git-clone refer to these docs]). Once the repository is cloned, you can 1>#Switching to a different version|switch to different branches or tags. 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.



Download a stable branch
If you do not want to develop software patches but want to anonymously clone the stable release branch <tvar|1></>, use this command instead:

If you have a slow internet connection and want to reduce the number of revisions that are cloned, add <tvar|cmd> </> to the <tvar|1> </> command.

MediaWiki tags (stable version)
Alternatively, specific stable versions of MediaWiki are tracked using 'tags'. These are analogous to the tarball releases. Currently, these are <tvar|1></> (stable), <tvar|2></> (LTS) and <tvar|3></> (legacy).

You can see all available tags with:

To use a specific tag, e.g. the latest stable release:

Update the Git submodules
The 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:

Fetch external libraries
MediaWiki uses Composer to manage external PHP libraries, all of which end up in the <tvar|1> </> directory in your MediaWiki directory.

To install these needed libraries, you have a choice:


 * [<tvar|url-c>https://getcomposer.org/doc/00-intro.md#globally</> Download and install the composer PHAR], optionally rename the composer.phar file as instructed for your OS, and then run <tvar|code> </> from your MediaWiki directory. This is the recommended approach.


 * Or, if you don't want to use Composer or if you want to use the exact same set of vendor libraries as used on the WMF production cluster, you can instead create a <tvar|vendor> </> directory inside the core folder of your MediaWiki installation:
 * With your developer account, use this command:
 * For anonymous checkout, use this command:
 * Note that if any of your extensions have their own Composer requirements, then you cannot use this option.

Prior to MediaWiki 1.25, external libraries were kept in the core repository, and no package manager was required.

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 this 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 <tvar|command> </>.

You also need to update <tvar|2> </> with any newer versions of required libraries. This often means running the following Composer command, but see 1>#Fetch external libraries</>|#Fetch external libraries above for more details:

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

If you use MediaWiki-Vagrant, it offers a single command, <tvar|command> </>, that performs all these steps.

Switching to a different version
Each of our versions are tracked as branches or tags. In order to switch to a different version (for example from the <tvar|1> </> branch to a different branch or tag), [<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

 * In the next commands, replace <EXT> with the name of the extension you want to download, without spaces. For <tvar|1></>, it would be TitleKey. (case sensitive!)

Download and clone an extension from Git:

With your developer account, use these commands to get the master branch:

For anonymous checkout of the stable branch instead, use these commands:

You can view extension source code in [<tvar|url>https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/plugins/gitiles/</> 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:

With your developer account, to get the master branch:

For anonymous checkout of the stable branch instead, use this command:

After running the  command, continue with these commands:

At any time, to update all extensions to their latest versions of that branch, 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

 * 1) Remove the "<tvar|1> </>" or "<tvar|2> </>" from <tvar|3> </>


 * 1) Remove any line referencing the extension in <tvar|1> </> (usually in the "extra → merge-plugin → include" section)


 * 1) Remove the extension's directory in <tvar|1> </>

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 <tvar|1> </> rather than <tvar|2> </> 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.