Git re-clone to existing folder with files

My Obsidian vault on another machine does not have .git so I have to re-clone only the .git folder. Use --no-checkout to clone only .git to a temporary path, then move it out.

git clone --no-checkout https://github.com/narze/second-brain temp_git
mv temp_git/.git .
rmdir temp_git

If some files are still missing, like .gitignore, you can restore them with git checkout HEAD

git checkout HEAD -- .gitignore
git reset