regenerating tags when cloning

I am working on a git remote (https://github.com/dhappy/git-remote-ipfs), and I am confused as to how to recreate signed tags when cloning.

My remote serializes the commit chain to IPFS and back. It works
correctly for branches, but I'm having difficulty with tags:
 • If I recreate tags, I get the error: "fatal: BUG: initial ref
transaction called with existing refs".
 • If I don't create the tags, I get an error like: "Error: reference
'refs/tags/v0.3.4' not found".
 • If I create the tags and remove the references, the clone will
complete, but the resultant repo has a detached head and no tags.

I created a minimum failing example when I posted to stackoverflow: https://stackoverflow.com/q/62360443/264008

I can do a "git clone --tags" from Github, and it creates a clone with tags, so I know it can be done. I just don't understand what I need to change.

It might be germane that I am translating the git objects into a
CBOR-DAG: https://explore.ipld.io/#/explore/Qmcnzkb1YGyDWBqSaFz1k7qi3F1VDaHNsBWNF2SvRiYeL5/.git
and relying on nodegit to reconstruct objects with the same SHA1
hashes on fetch, so I can't directly insert things into the object
database.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

–☮W