Git submodules best practices

git-submodules.md

Git submodules best practices

Useful commands

— Clone repository with submodules automatically:

git clone --recursive git@github.com:name/repo.git

— Initialize submodules after regular cloning:

git submodule update --init

— Make submodules to track their respective remote branches (instead of being in detached HEAD state):

git submodule foreach -q --recursive 'git checkout $(git config -f $toplevel/.gitmodules submodule.$name.branch || echo master)'

— Display status of submodules when git status is invoked:

git config --global status.submoduleSummary true

— Script for pulling the main repo and updating the sumodules automatically:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

git pull "$@" &&
  git submodule sync --recursive &&
  git submodule update --init --recursive

Additional reading

• Mastering Git submodules