I saw this question here, but the question is from 2010 and talks about git version < 2 mostly. And all of the given answers seem to indicate: you can restrict the "current" checkout; but you will always have the full history locally.
The later thing is my problem. We just moved from SVN to git for our main repository; and the .git has some 8, 9 GB (a lot of history, and a lot of huge files).
But: one tiny directory in that huge repository is a small python tool (lets call it PX) that I own and use daily.
Before moving the backend to git, it would simply use git-svn, twice: a full checkout of the huge repository containing everything (for my real development work); and a sparse checkout containing only PX.
Now I am wondering if git 2.95 in 2016 would provides any option to use git as I used git-svn before. Meaning - having a working git for PX, but PX only.