If you have a tag of a tag of a commit, and the middle tag isn't otherwise reachable, then "pack-objects --include-tag" will not include the middle tag, and certain invocations of "clone" will fail. See the final patch below for the gory details. The first five patches are just test cleanup and modernization in preparation (though note that the 3rd one actually fixes a minor bug in the test script). [1/5]: t5305: move cleanup into test block [2/5]: t5305: drop "dry-run" of unpack-objects [3/5]: t5305: use "git -C" [4/5]: t5305: simplify packname handling [5/5]: pack-objects: walk tag chains for --include-tag -Peff