How to Create a Git Submodule

Git submodule is a powerful feature that allows us to import external repositories into projects. This modular approach enhances code organization, facilitates collaboration and simplifies dependency management.

Step 1:

Open a terminal window and navigate to the root directory of your existing Git project. This is where you want to add the submodule.

cd path/to/your/project

Step 2:

Use the git submodule add command to add a submodule to your project. Replace submodule_url with the URL of the Git repository you want to add.

git submodule add submodule_url

For example

git submodule add https://github.com/example/repo.git

Step 3:

After adding the submodule, commit the changes to your main project. This records the submodule's information in your project's version history.

git commit -m "Add submodule: repo"

Step 4:

If you are sharing your project with others, or if you are cloning it onto another machine, use the --recursive flag to initialize and update the submodules.

git clone --recursive https://github.com/yourusername/yourproject.git

If you've already cloned the project without the --recursive flag, you can initialize the submodules using:

git submodule update --init --recursive

Step 5:

When you make changes within the submodule, navigate into the submodule directory, make your changes, commit, and push as you would in a regular Git repository.

cd path/to/submodule
# Make changes
git add .
git commit -m "Update submodule"
git push origin main

Back in the main project, commit the submodule's new commit reference:

cd path/to/your/project
git add .
git commit -m "Update submodule to latest commit"
git push origin main