The Problem

I have a LookML project connected to a Git repository. I would now like to move that LookML to a new repository.

The Solutions

There are two solutions, one simple and one advanced. The simple solution preserves the history of the master branch, while the advanced solution preserves the history of all branches. Both solutions are described in the following sections.

Simple Solution: Preserve History for the Master Branch

If we reset the Git connection and enter a new Git URL, then the LookML will be moved over to that repository. Follow these steps:

1. Go to the Project Settings page for that project:
   
2. On the Project Settings page, click the Reset Git Connection button:
3. On the Configure Git page, enter the new Git URL (the Git URL for the repository to which you want to migrate), then click the Continue button.
4. If you are using SSH to connect, be sure to click the Reset Key button. Otherwise, the same SSH key will be used, which can cause a conflict if both repositories are hosted by the same service (in this case, Github).
   
5. For SSH connections, add the new deploy key to your Git repo, and be sure to grant Write access in the Git repo deploy key settings. If you are using HTTPS, enter the login credentials for your Git repo (see the Setting Up and Testing a Git Connection documentation page for full instructions on setting up Git).

That is all! Now your project is connected to the new repository.

Note: Your project LookML will not appear in the master branch of the new repository until you deploy your project to production. Unless you deploy to production, your LookML code will appear only on your development branch in the new repository after you commit the code, or push it to remote (a git command available in the shift-click git menu).

Advanced Solution: Preserve All Branches

The above steps preserve the history of the master branch and the branches of any developers who choose to log in and sync their Development Mode. To preserve all branches and their history, a more involved process is necessary.

First, you need to own the original repository. You can find the URL at the bottom of the Project Settings page. If it begins with llooker/, then it is Looker-hosted. We can grant access to a Looker-hosted repository for a limited time while you complete the migration; to get the process started, please contact us and include the repo URL and your Github user name.

For this example, in a situation where git@github.com:llooker/PROJECT_NAME.git is the original repo and git@github.com:your_organization/PROJECT_NAME.git is the new repo:

1. Clone the original repository onto your computer, and pull down the branches you want to preserve.

   git clone git@github.com:llooker/PROJECT_NAME.git
   cd PROJECT_NAME
   git checkout master
   git pull
   

2. Reset the repo's remote URL (read more about this here).

   git remote -v
       

   This shows you the remote(s) to which your repo is currently pointing. The results will look something like:

   origin git@github.com:llooker/PROJECT_NAME.git (fetch)
   origin git@github.com:llooker/PROJECT_NAME.git (push)
   

3. Now set the origin remote to the new repo:

   git remote set-url origin git@github.com:your_organization/PROJECT_NAME.git
   git push origin master
       

4. Now, to bring in history and files for dev branches, you'll need to do git checkout dev_branch_name and git push origin for each dev branch. This can be done manually, or in a loop in a script such as:

   #!/bin/bash
   for branch in $(git branch --all | grep '^\s*remotes' | egrep --invert-match '(:?HEAD|master)$'); do
   git branch --track "${branch##*/}" "$branch"
   done
   

   Then push the branches with git push --all.

5. Reset the git connection in Looker to this new URL and set up a deploy key on this new repo (see the steps in the simple solution section above).