GIT-SUBMODULE(1)

📦
version 2.56.0 · 25 versions
, in arch rolling

💖 git-submodule — GIT-SUBMODULE(1) 💖

okay bestie, this is the git-submodule manual page, a.k.a. GIT-SUBMODULE(1), and we’re getting through every single detail together. No skipping, no “you’ll figure it out,” no cap. 🫶

🌸 NAME 🌸

git-submodule — Initialize, update or inspect submodules

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

git submodule [--quiet] [--cached]
git submodule [--quiet] add [<options>] [--] <repository> [<path>]
git submodule [--quiet] status [--cached] [--recursive] [--] [<path>...]
git submodule [--quiet] init [--] [<path>...]
git submodule [--quiet] deinit [-f|--force] (--all|[--] <path>...)
git submodule [--quiet] update [<options>] [--] [<path>...]
git submodule [--quiet] set-branch [<options>] [--] <path>
git submodule [--quiet] set-url [--] <path> <newurl>
git submodule [--quiet] summary [<options>] [--] [<path>...]
git submodule [--quiet] foreach [--recursive] <command>
git submodule [--quiet] sync [--recursive] [--] [<path>...]
git submodule [--quiet] absorbgitdirs [--] [<path>...]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

It inspects, updates and manages submodules.

For the full deep dive on submodules, see gitsubmodules(7). 📚

💅 COMMANDS 💅

With no arguments, it shows the status of existing submodules. Several subcommands are available to perform operations on the submodules. slay. ✨

➕ add — adding a submodule

add [-b <branch>] [-f | --force] [--name <name>] [--reference <repository>] [--ref-format <format>] [--depth <depth>] [--] <repository> [<path>]

Add the given repository as a submodule at the given path to the changeset to be committed next to the current project. The current project is termed the “superproject.” 👑

<repository> is the URL of the new submodule’s origin repository. This may be either an absolute URL, or — if it begins with ./ or ../ — the location relative to the superproject’s default remote repository. Please note that to specify a repository foo.git which is located right next to a superproject bar.git, you’ll have to use ../foo.git instead of ./foo.git — as one might expect when following the rules for relative URLs — because the evaluation of relative URLs in Git is identical to that of relative directories.

The default remote is the remote of the remote-tracking branch of the current branch. If no such remote-tracking branch exists or the HEAD is detached, origin is assumed to be the default remote. If the superproject doesn’t have a default remote configured, the superproject is its own authoritative upstream and the current working directory is used instead.

The optional argument <path> is the relative location for the cloned submodule to exist in the superproject. If <path> is not given, the canonical part of the source repository is used (repo for /path/to/repo.git and foo for host.xz:foo/.git). If <path> exists and is already a valid Git repository, then it is staged for commit without cloning. The <path> is also used as the submodule’s logical name in its configuration entries unless --name <name> is used to specify a logical name.

The given URL is recorded into .gitmodules for use by subsequent users cloning the superproject. If the URL is given relative to the superproject’s repository, the presumption is the superproject and submodule repositories will be kept together in the same relative location, and only the superproject’s URL needs to be provided. git-submodule will correctly locate the submodule using the relative URL in .gitmodules.

If --ref-format <format> is specified, the ref storage format of newly cloned submodules will be set accordingly. 🧚

🧐 status — the vibe check

status [--cached] [--recursive] [--] [<path>...]

Show the status of the submodules. This will print the SHA-1 of the currently checked out commit for each submodule, along with the submodule path and the output of git-describe(1) for the SHA-1. Each SHA-1 will possibly be prefixed with - if the submodule is not initialized, + if the currently checked out submodule commit does not match the SHA-1 found in the index of the containing repository, and U if the submodule has merge conflicts. 😭

If --cached is specified, this command will instead print the SHA-1 recorded in the superproject for each submodule.

If --recursive is specified, this command will recurse into nested submodules, and show their status as well. 🌀

If you are only interested in changes of the currently initialized submodules with respect to the commit recorded in the index or the HEAD, git-status(1) and git-diff(1) will provide that information too — and they can also report changes to a submodule’s work tree. iykyk 💅

🌱 init — wake those submodules up

init [--] [<path>...]

Initialize the submodules recorded in the index — which were added and committed elsewhere — by setting submodule.$name.url in .git/config, using the same setting from .gitmodules as a template. If the URL is relative, it will be resolved using the default remote. If there is no default remote, the current repository will be assumed to be upstream. 🫶

Optional <path> arguments limit which submodules will be initialized. If no path is specified and submodule.active has been configured, submodules configured to be active will be initialized; otherwise all submodules are initialized.

It will also copy the value of submodule.$name.update, if present in the .gitmodules file, to .git/config, but:

  1. this command does not alter existing information in .git/config, and
  2. submodule.$name.update that is set to a custom command is not copied for security reasons. 🔒

You can then customize the submodule clone URLs in .git/config for your local setup and proceed to git submodule update; you can also just use git submodule update --init without the explicit init step if you do not intend to customize any submodule locations.

See the add subcommand for the definition of default remote.

💀 deinit — unregistering a submodule

deinit [-f | --force] (--all|[--] <path>...)

Unregister the given submodules, i.e. remove the whole submodule.$name section from .git/config together with their work tree. Further calls to git submodule update, git submodule foreach and git submodule sync will skip any unregistered submodules until they are initialized again, so use this command if you don’t want to have a local checkout of the submodule in your working tree anymore. bye bestie 👋

When the command is run without pathspec, it errors out, instead of deinit-ing everything, to prevent mistakes. lowkey important safety feature, do not ignore. ⚠️

If --force is specified, the submodule’s working tree will be removed even if it contains local modifications. that means local changes can go poof — be sure, bestie. 💀

If you really want to remove a submodule from the repository and commit that, use git-rm(1) instead. See gitsubmodules(7) for removal options.

🔄 update — making submodules match the superproject

update [--init] [--remote] [-N | --no-fetch] [--[no-]recommend-shallow]
       [-f | --force] [--checkout | --rebase | --merge]
       [--reference=<repository>] [--ref-format=<format>] [--depth=<depth>]
       [--recursive] [--jobs <n>] [--[no-]single-branch]
       [--filter=<filter-spec>] [--] [<path>...]

Update the registered submodules to match what the superproject expects by cloning missing submodules, fetching missing commits in submodules and updating the working tree of the submodules. The “updating” can be done in several ways depending on command line options and the value of the submodule.<name>.update configuration variable. The command line option takes precedence over the configuration variable. If neither is given, a checkout is performed.

note: what is in the .gitmodules file is irrelevant at this point; see git submodule init above for how .gitmodules is used.

The update procedures supported both from the command line as well as through the submodule.<name>.update configuration are:

  • checkout — the commit recorded in the superproject will be checked out in the submodule on a detached HEAD. If --force is specified, the submodule will be checked out (using git checkout --force), even if the commit specified in the index of the containing repository already matches the commit checked out in the submodule. 🎯
  • rebase — the current branch of the submodule will be rebased onto the commit recorded in the superproject.
  • merge — the commit recorded in the superproject will be merged into the current branch in the submodule.

The following update procedures have additional limitations:

  • !<custom-command> — mechanism for running arbitrary commands with the commit ID as an argument. Specifically, if the submodule.<name>.update configuration variable is set to !<custom-command>, the object name of the commit recorded in the superproject for the submodule is appended to the <custom-command> string and executed. Note that this mechanism is not supported in the .gitmodules file or on the command line. 🚨
  • none — the submodule is not updated. This update procedure is not allowed on the command line.

If the submodule is not yet initialized, and you just want to use the setting as stored in .gitmodules, you can automatically initialize the submodule with the --init option. ✨

If --recursive is specified, this command will recurse into the registered submodules, and update any nested submodules within. 🪆

If --ref-format <format> is specified, the ref storage format of newly cloned submodules will be set accordingly.

If --filter <filter-spec> is specified, the given partial clone filter will be applied to the submodule. See git-rev-list(1) for details on filter specifications.

🌿 set-branch — setting the default tracking branch

set-branch (-b|--branch) <branch> [--] <path>, set-branch (-d|--default) [--] <path>

Set the default remote tracking branch for the submodule. The --branch option allows the remote branch to be specified. The --default option removes the submodule.<name>.branch configuration key, which causes the tracking branch to default to the remote HEAD. 🌱

🔗 set-url — new URL, who dis

set-url [--] <path> <newurl>

Set the URL of the specified submodule to <newurl>. Then, it will automatically synchronize the submodule’s new remote URL configuration. 🎀

🌸 summary

summary [--cached | --files] [(-n|--summary-limit) <n>] [commit] [--]
[<path>...]

okay so summary is literally the ✨ receipts ✨ command. It shows you the commit summary between the commit you name (and yeah, it defaults to HEAD if you're lazy, which, same) and your working tree/index. 💅

For the submodule you're asking about, it shows you a whole lil series of commits inside that submodule — spanning from the super project commit you gave, over to the index or the working tree (you flip between those with --cached).

Now if you throw in --files? 🎀 It shows the series of commits in the submodule sitting between the index of the super project and the working tree of the submodule. But bestie, heads up — that option is picky: it does not let you use the --cached option, and it does not let you provide an explicit commit. No cap, that's just how it is. 🙈

Also, tiny flex: using the --submodule=log option with git-diff(1) will hand you that exact same info too. iykyk. 🦋

🧚 foreach

foreach [--recursive] <command>

This one's the main character of the whole page ngl — it evaluates an arbitrary shell <command> inside every checked-out submodule. And the command gets hooked up with these lil variables: $name, $sm_path, $displaypath, $sha1 and $toplevel. 🫶

  • $name — the name of the relevant submodule section in .gitmodules
  • $sm_path — the path of the submodule as recorded in the immediate superproject
  • $displaypath — the relative path from the current working directory to the submodules root directory
  • $sha1 — the commit as recorded in the immediate superproject
  • $toplevel — the absolute path to the top-level of the immediate superproject.
⚠️ Important lil footnote, bestie: to avoid conflicts with $PATH on Windows, the $path variable is now a deprecated synonym of the $sm_path variable. So like… it still works, but it's giving legacy vibes. 💀

More deets: any submodules defined in the superproject but not checked out are literally ignored by this command. Rude but okay. 👑

Unless you pass --quiet, foreach prints the name of each submodule before evaluating the command. And if you give it --recursive, it traverses submodules recursively — as in, your shell command gets evaluated in nested submodules too. 🌀

Real talk though: a non-zero return from the command in any submodule causes the processing to terminate. Like, the whole thing just stops. But you can override that by adding ||: to the end of the command. Iconic little escape hatch. ✨

As an example, the command below will show the path and currently checked out commit for each submodule:

git submodule foreach 'echo $sm_path `git rev-parse HEAD`'

💖 sync

sync [--recursive] [--] [<path>...]

sync synchronizes submodules' remote URL configuration setting to the value specified in .gitmodules. Basically it goes "hey, your config should match the file, let's fix that." 🎀

BUT — and this is the crucial bit — it will only affect those submodules which already have a URL entry in .git/config (which is the case when they are initialized or freshly added). So it's not out here creating entries for randos. 🌸

When is this useful? When submodule URLs change upstream and you need to update your local repositories accordingly. That's the moment. 🦋

For example:

  • git submodule sync → synchronizes all submodules
  • git submodule sync -- A → synchronizes submodule A only

And if --recursive is specified, this command will recurse into the registered submodules, and sync any nested submodules within. Down the rabbit hole we go. 🐇✨

👑 absorbgitdirs

okay this one has the coolest name and honestly it earns it. 💅

If a git directory of a submodule is inside the submodule, it moves the git directory of the submodule into its superproject's $GIT_DIR/modules path, and then connects the git directory and its working directory by setting the core.worktree and adding a .git file pointing to the git directory embedded in the superprojects git directory.

Why does this exist? Because a repository that was cloned independently and later added as a submodule (or old setups) have the submodules git directory inside the submodule instead of embedded into the superprojects git directory. So this command tidies all that up. 🧹✨

🫶 Friendly reminder: this command is recursive by default. No flag needed — it just goes.

✨ OPTIONS ✨

Okay bestie, this is the part where the page gets long, but every single one of these is lowkey useful so we're doing them all, no skipping, no cap 💅

  • -q, --quiet — only print error messages. That's it. That's the whole vibe. Silence is golden 🎀
  • --progress — reports progress status on the standard error stream by default when it's attached to a terminal, unless -q is specified. This flag forces progress status even if the standard error stream is not directed to a terminal. Only valid for the add and update commands. So like, if you're piping things and wanna see the little progress bar anyway? This is your girl 🦋
  • --all — unregister all submodules in the working tree. Only valid for the deinit command. Scorched earth, but make it tidy 🔥
  • -b<branch>, --branch=<branch> — branch of repository to add as a submodule. The branch name gets recorded as submodule.<name>.branch in .gitmodules for update --remote. A special value of . means "use the same name as the current branch in the current repository" — iconic shorthand honestly. If you don't specify the option at all, it defaults to the remote HEAD.
  • -f, --force — force the command to proceed even if it would otherwise fail. Only valid for add, deinit and update. And because it means different things per command, here's the tea:
    • add — allows adding an otherwise ignored submodule path. It's also used to bypass a check that the submodule's name isn't already in use. By default, git submodule add will fail if the proposed name (which is derived from the path) is already registered for another submodule in the repository. Using --force lets the command proceed by automatically generating a unique name by appending a number to the conflicting name (e.g., if a submodule named child exists, it will try child1, and so on). Cute little auto-numbering moment 🧚
    • deinit — the submodule working trees will be removed even if they contain local changes. Bestie. Read that twice. 😭
    • update — (only effective with the checkout procedure) throws away local changes in submodules when switching to a different commit; and always runs a checkout operation in the submodule, even if the commit listed in the index of the containing repository matches the commit checked out in the submodule.
  • --cached — use the index to determine the commit instead of the HEAD. Only valid for the status and summary commands.
  • --files — makes the summary command compare the commit in the index with the one in the submodule HEAD.
  • -n<n>, --summary-limit=<n> — limit the summary size (that's the number of commits shown in total) to <n>. Giving 0 disables the summary; a negative number means unlimited (and that's the default, bestie). This limit only applies to modified submodules. The size is always limited to 1 for added/deleted/typechanged submodules — no negotiating there 💀
  • --remote — instead of using the superproject's recorded SHA-1 to update the submodule, use the status of the submodule's remote-tracking branch. Only valid for the update command.

The remote used is the branch's remote (branch.<name>.remote), defaulting to origin. The remote branch used defaults to the remote HEAD, but the branch name may be overridden by setting the submodule.<name>.branch option in either .gitmodules or .git/config (with .git/config taking precedence).

This works for any of the supported update procedures (--checkout, --rebase, etc.). The only change is the source of the target SHA-1. For example, submodule update --remote --merge will merge upstream submodule changes into the submodules, while submodule update --merge will merge superproject gitlink changes into the submodules.

In order to ensure a current tracking branch state, update --remote fetches the submodule's remote repository before calculating the SHA-1. If you don't want to fetch, you should use submodule update --remote --no-fetch. ✨

Use this option to integrate changes from the upstream subproject with your submodule's current HEAD. Alternatively, you can run git pull from the submodule, which is equivalent except for the remote branch name: update --remote uses the default upstream repository and submodule.<name>.branch, while git pull uses the submodule's branch.<name>.merge. So: prefer submodule.<name>.branch if you want to distribute the default upstream branch with the superproject, and branch.<name>.merge if you want a more native feel while working in the submodule itself. iykyk 🫶

  • -N, --no-fetch — don't fetch new objects from the remote site. Only valid for the update command.
  • --checkout — checkout the commit recorded in the superproject on a detached HEAD in the submodule. Only valid for the update command. This is the default behavior, and the main use of this option is to override submodule.<name>.update when it's set to a value other than checkout. If the key submodule.<name>.update is either not explicitly set or set to checkout, this option is implicit. Main character energy: it's already the default, but you can still say it out loud 👑
  • --merge — merge the commit recorded in the superproject into the current branch of the submodule. Only valid for the update command. If this option is given, the submodule's HEAD will not be detached. If a merge failure prevents this process, you'll have to resolve the resulting conflicts within the submodule with the usual conflict resolution tools. If the key submodule.<name>.update is set to merge, this option is implicit.
  • --rebase — rebase the current branch onto the commit recorded in the superproject. Only valid for the update command. The submodule's HEAD will not be detached. If a merge failure prevents this process, you'll have to resolve these failures with git-rebase(1). If the key submodule.<name>.update is set to rebase, this option is implicit. Not me making rebase sound fun 🍓
  • --init — initialize all submodules for which git submodule init has not been called so far, before updating. Only valid for the update command.
  • --name=<name> — set the submodule's name to the given string instead of defaulting to its path. <name> must be valid as a directory name and may not end with a /. Slash at the end? Absolutely not, babe 🙈
  • --reference=<repository> — pass the local <repository> as a reference when cloning the submodule. Only valid for add and update. These commands sometimes need to clone a remote repository, and in this case the option will be passed to the git-clone(1) command.
Note — Do not use this option unless you have read the note for git-clone(1)'s --reference, --shared, and --dissociate options carefully. This is a real warning, not a vibe. 😭
  • --dissociate — after using a reference repository to clone from, do not rely on it anymore. Only valid for add and update. These commands sometimes need to clone a remote repository, and in this case the option will be passed to the git-clone(1) command.
Note — See the NOTE above for the --reference option.
  • --recursive — traverse submodules recursively. Only valid for foreach, update, status and sync. The operation is performed not only in the submodules of the current repo, but also in any nested submodules inside those submodules (and so on). It's turtles all the way down 🐢
  • --depth=<depth> — create a shallow clone with a history truncated to the <depth> revisions. Valid for add and update. See git-clone(1).
  • --recommend-shallow, --no-recommend-shallow — recommend or not shallow cloning of submodules. Only valid for the update command. The initial clone of a submodule will use the recommended submodule.<name>.shallow as provided by the .gitmodules file by default. To ignore the suggestions use --no-recommend-shallow.
  • -j<n>, --jobs=<n> — clone new submodules in parallel with <n> jobs. Only valid for the update command. Defaults to the submodule.fetchJobs option. Parallel slay ✨
  • --single-branch, --no-single-branch — clone only one branch during update: HEAD or one specified by --branch. Only valid for the update command.
  • <path>... — paths to submodule(s). When specified, this restricts the command to only operate on the submodules found at the specified paths. (This argument is required with add, so don't forget it, bestie 🫶)

📁 FILES 📁

When initializing submodules, a .gitmodules file in the top-level directory of the containing repository is used to find the URL of each submodule.

This file should be formatted in the same way as $GIT_DIR/config. The key to each submodule URL is submodule.<name>.url. See gitmodules(5) for details. One file, all the URLs — the original group chat 🎀

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

gitsubmodules(7), gitmodules(5).

Like, the literal receipts. Go read them, they're not long 🌸

🌈 GIT 🌈

Part of the git(1) suite. Obviously. Family reunion ⭐

And that's the whole page, bestie — you made it to the end 🎉 This gem comes to you courtesy of Git 2.56.0, dated 2026-09-27, living under the name GIT-SUBMODULE(1). Go forth and submodule responsibly, ily 💖

📦 where this page comes from