In the docs for git-clone the brackets become mismatched for any options that have a [no-] counterpart. https://git-scm.com/docs/git-clone These include: --[no-]single-branch --[no-]shallow-submodules --[no-]reject-shallow --[no-]remote-submodules For example the first option will render as "single-branch]". Source: https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/git-clone.txt#L12-L20