Forks & Templates

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Overview

Templates let platforms offer starter projects. Users fork templates into their own namespace, getting a full copy of the code with semantic search and code graph available immediately — no re-indexing required.

Create a Template

Mark any repository as a template using is_template on create or update:

POST /v1/repos

{
  "slug": "nextjs-starter",
  "is_template": true,
  "visibility": "public",
  "description": "Next.js starter template"
}

Or update an existing repo:

PATCH /v1/repos/nextjs-starter

{
  "is_template": true
}

List Templates

GET /v1/repos?is_template=true

Returns only template repositories.

Fork a Repository

POST /v1/repos/:slug/fork
POST /v1/repos/:namespace/:slug/fork

{
  "slug": "my-app",
  "namespace": "alice",
  "description": "My project based on nextjs-starter"
}

• slug — Required. Target repository slug
• namespace — Optional. Target namespace
• description — Optional. Defaults to source description
• default_branch — Optional. Defaults to source default branch

Response 201:

{
  "id": "fork_xyz789",
  "namespace": "alice",
  "slug": "my-app",
  "description": "My project based on nextjs-starter",
  "default_branch": "main",
  "visibility": "private",
  "is_template": false,
  "forked_from": {
    "repo_id": "repo_abc123",
    "org_id": "org_456",
    "slug": "nextjs-starter",
    "namespace": null
  },
  "semantic_inherited": true,
  "graph_copied": true,
  "graph_nodes_count": 42,
  "git_url": "https://api.coregit.dev/myorg/alice/my-app.git",
  "api_url": "https://api.coregit.dev/v1/repos/alice/my-app",
  "created_at": "2025-01-01T00:00:00Z"
}

What Happens During Fork

1. Git objects — All objects (blobs, trees, commits, refs) are fully copied to the fork's R2 storage
2. Code graph — All nodes and edges are bulk-copied via SQL with repo-scoped IDs
3. Semantic vectors — Not copied. Search queries both the fork's Pinecone namespace and the parent's namespace in parallel, merging results. As the fork diverges, new content is indexed into the fork's own namespace

Access Control

Fork Behavior

• Forks are independent copies — changes to the template do not propagate
• Forks are always created with visibility: "private"
• Forks are never templates themselves (is_template: false)
• Deleting the parent template does not affect existing forks
• Semantic search on forks gracefully degrades if the parent is deleted
• The forked_from field on the repo object shows the parent relationship