diff --git a/swh/loader/mercurial/hgutil.py b/swh/loader/mercurial/hgutil.py
--- a/swh/loader/mercurial/hgutil.py
+++ b/swh/loader/mercurial/hgutil.py
@@ -1,11 +1,11 @@
 import io
-import traceback
 from multiprocessing import Process, Queue
+import traceback
 from typing import Dict, NewType
 
 # The internal Mercurial API is not guaranteed to be stable.
+from mercurial import context, hg, util  # type: ignore
 import mercurial.ui  # type: ignore
-from mercurial import context, hg, util
 
 NULLID = mercurial.node.nullid
 HgNodeId = NewType("HgNodeId", bytes)
@@ -46,7 +46,13 @@
         errors: message queue to communicate errors
     """
     try:
-        hg.clone(mercurial.ui.ui.load(), {}, src.encode(), dest.encode())
+        hg.clone(
+            ui=mercurial.ui.ui.load(),
+            peeropts={},
+            source=src.encode(),
+            dest=dest.encode(),
+            update=False,
+        )
     except Exception as e:
         exc_buffer = io.StringIO()
         traceback.print_exc(file=exc_buffer)
diff --git a/swh/loader/mercurial/loader.py b/swh/loader/mercurial/loader.py
--- a/swh/loader/mercurial/loader.py
+++ b/swh/loader/mercurial/loader.py
@@ -195,7 +195,7 @@
 
         def do_clone(queue, origin, destination):
             try:
-                result = hglib.clone(source=origin, dest=destination)
+                result = hglib.clone(source=origin, dest=destination, noupdate=True)
             except CommandError as e:
                 # the queued object need an empty constructor to be deserialized later
                 queue.put(CommandErrorWrapper(e.err))