diff --git a/doc/builders/fetchers.chapter.md b/doc/builders/fetchers.chapter.md
index d4cab056c70b..16e4baa966b0 100644
--- a/doc/builders/fetchers.chapter.md
+++ b/doc/builders/fetchers.chapter.md
@@ -31,6 +31,8 @@ Used with Subversion. Expects `url` to a Subversion directory, `rev`, and `sha25
 
 Used with Git. Expects `url` to a Git repo, `rev`, and `sha256`. `rev` in this case can be full the git commit id (SHA1 hash) or a tag name like `refs/tags/v1.0`.
 
+Additionally the following optional arguments can be given: `fetchSubmodules = true` makes `fetchgit` also fetch the submodules of a repository. If `deepClone` is set to true, the entire repository is cloned as opposing to just creating a shallow clone. `deepClone = true` also implies `leaveDotGit = true` which means that the `.git` directory of the clone won't be removed after checkout.
+
 ## `fetchfossil`
 
 Used with Fossil. Expects `url` to a Fossil archive, `rev`, and `sha256`.
@@ -49,6 +51,8 @@ A number of fetcher functions wrap part of `fetchurl` and `fetchzip`. They are m
 
 `fetchFromGitHub` expects four arguments. `owner` is a string corresponding to the GitHub user or organization that controls this repository. `repo` corresponds to the name of the software repository. These are located at the top of every GitHub HTML page as `owner`/`repo`. `rev` corresponds to the Git commit hash or tag (e.g `v1.0`) that will be downloaded from Git. Finally, `sha256` corresponds to the hash of the extracted directory. Again, other hash algorithms are also available but `sha256` is currently preferred.
 
+`fetchFromGitHub` uses `fetchzip` to download the source archive generated by GitHub for the specified revision. If `leaveDotGit`, `deepClone` or `fetchSubmodules` are set to `true`, `fetchFromGitHub` will use `fetchgit` instead. Refer to its section for documentation of these options.
+
 ## `fetchFromGitLab`
 
 This is used with GitLab repositories. The arguments expected are very similar to fetchFromGitHub above.
diff --git a/pkgs/build-support/fetchgithub/default.nix b/pkgs/build-support/fetchgithub/default.nix
index 66671dd0a6ae..3f355d10f8a1 100644
--- a/pkgs/build-support/fetchgithub/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/build-support/fetchgithub/default.nix
@@ -1,17 +1,19 @@
 { lib, fetchgit, fetchzip }:
 
 { owner, repo, rev, name ? "source"
-, fetchSubmodules ? false, private ? false
+, fetchSubmodules ? false, leaveDotGit ? null
+, deepClone ? false, private ? false
 , githubBase ? "github.com", varPrefix ? null
 , ... # For hash agility
-}@args: assert private -> !fetchSubmodules;
+}@args:
 let
   baseUrl = "https://${githubBase}/${owner}/${repo}";
   passthruAttrs = removeAttrs args [ "owner" "repo" "rev" "fetchSubmodules" "private" "githubBase" "varPrefix" ];
   varBase = "NIX${if varPrefix == null then "" else "_${varPrefix}"}_GITHUB_PRIVATE_";
+  useFetchGit = fetchSubmodules || (leaveDotGit == true) || deepClone;
   # We prefer fetchzip in cases we don't need submodules as the hash
   # is more stable in that case.
-  fetcher = if fetchSubmodules then fetchgit else fetchzip;
+  fetcher = if useFetchGit then fetchgit else fetchzip;
   privateAttrs = lib.optionalAttrs private {
     netrcPhase = ''
       if [ -z "''$${varBase}USERNAME" -o -z "''$${varBase}PASSWORD" ]; then
@@ -26,8 +28,14 @@ let
     '';
     netrcImpureEnvVars = [ "${varBase}USERNAME" "${varBase}PASSWORD" ];
   };
-  fetcherArgs = (if fetchSubmodules
-    then { inherit rev fetchSubmodules; url = "${baseUrl}.git"; }
+  fetcherArgs = (if useFetchGit
+    then {
+      inherit rev deepClone fetchSubmodules; url = "${baseUrl}.git";
+    } // lib.optionalAttrs (leaveDotGit != null) { inherit leaveDotGit; }
     else ({ url = "${baseUrl}/archive/${rev}.tar.gz"; } // privateAttrs)
   ) // passthruAttrs // { inherit name; };
-in fetcher fetcherArgs // { meta.homepage = baseUrl; inherit rev; }
+in
+
+assert private -> !useFetchGit;
+
+fetcher fetcherArgs // { meta.homepage = baseUrl; inherit rev; }