diff --git a/components/content-service/pkg/git/git.go b/components/content-service/pkg/git/git.go
index a22892672b3125..743053d3c3d5a4 100644
--- a/components/content-service/pkg/git/git.go
+++ b/components/content-service/pkg/git/git.go
@@ -264,17 +264,13 @@ func (c *Client) Clone(ctx context.Context) (err error) {
 		log.WithError(err).Error()
 	}
 
-	args := make([]string, 0)
-	args = append(args, c.RemoteURI)
+	args := []string{"--depth=1", "--no-single-branch", c.RemoteURI}
 
 	for key, value := range c.Config {
 		args = append(args, "--config")
 		args = append(args, strings.TrimSpace(key)+"="+strings.TrimSpace(value))
 	}
 
-	// TODO(cw): re-introduce this when we have a better story for repo forking
-	// args = append(args, "--filter=blob:none")
-
 	args = append(args, ".")
 
 	return c.Git(ctx, "clone", args...)
diff --git a/components/content-service/pkg/initializer/git.go b/components/content-service/pkg/initializer/git.go
index 40544e17cb6cf7..e51c497b5232a2 100644
--- a/components/content-service/pkg/initializer/git.go
+++ b/components/content-service/pkg/initializer/git.go
@@ -148,6 +148,13 @@ func (ws *GitInitializer) realizeCloneTarget(ctx context.Context) (err error) {
 			return err
 		}
 	} else if ws.TargetMode == RemoteCommit {
+		// We did a shallow clone before, hence need to fetch the commit we are about to check out.
+		// Because we don't want to make the "git fetch" mechanism in supervisor more complicated,
+		// we'll just fetch the 20 commits right away.
+		if err := ws.Git(ctx, "fetch", "origin", ws.CloneTarget, "--depth=20"); err != nil {
+			return err
+		}
+
 		// checkout specific commit
 		if err := ws.Git(ctx, "checkout", ws.CloneTarget); err != nil {
 			return err
diff --git a/components/supervisor/pkg/supervisor/supervisor.go b/components/supervisor/pkg/supervisor/supervisor.go
index 657c89fb70ee38..e851f19471b28e 100644
--- a/components/supervisor/pkg/supervisor/supervisor.go
+++ b/components/supervisor/pkg/supervisor/supervisor.go
@@ -311,6 +311,25 @@ func Run(options ...RunOption) {
 		}()
 	}
 
+	go func() {
+		<-cstate.ContentReady()
+
+		start := time.Now()
+		defer func() {
+			log.Debugf("unshallow of local repository took %v", time.Since(start))
+		}()
+
+		cmd := runAsGitpodUser(exec.Command("git", "fetch", "--depth", "20"))
+		cmd.Env = buildChildProcEnv(cfg, nil)
+		cmd.Dir = cfg.RepoRoot
+		cmd.Stdout = os.Stdout
+		cmd.Stderr = os.Stderr
+		err := cmd.Run()
+		if err != nil && !(err.Error() == "wait: no child processes" || err.Error() == "waitid: no child processes") {
+			log.WithError(err).Error("git fetch error")
+		}
+	}()
+
 	sigChan := make(chan os.Signal, 1)
 	signal.Notify(sigChan, os.Interrupt, syscall.SIGTERM)
 	select {