An alternative to the official Git Submodule features. Same principles, but ridiculously much simpler to use and maintain.

The submodules are described in a plain text file at the root of the repository (.gitsubmodules) and that is the only place describing them.

The described submodules repositories can be added to the working tree through a command. Conversely, repositories in the working tree can be added to the submodule description file through a command.

Adding a submodule is easy: either edit the .gitsubmodules file directly, or just clone the submodule's repository in your working tree and add it.

Unlike Git Submodule, this tool allows you to specify alternative source URLs for submodules.

• $ git-submodules.py COMMAND will apply COMMAND to all submodules in .gitsubmodules.
• $ git-submodules.py COMMAND PATH0 PATH1 ... will apply COMMAND to the submodules PATH0, PATH1, and so on...

Basic commands:

• add Modifies .gitsubmodules to register or update the description of the selected submodules and/or paths. Said paths are added to .gitignore if not already present.
• status Prints information about any mismatch between the submodules' description and their clone within the working tree.
• update-desc Updates .gitsubmodules so that each submodule's description matches its clone within the working tree. Their paths are added to .gitignore if not already present.
• update-dir Updates or creates a clone of each submodule in the working tree, according to their description in .gitsubmodules. This is done recursively. Official Git Submodules are also loaded in each of these clones. Paths to the submodule clones are added to .gitignore if not already present.

More advanced commands: Available commands:

• rm-dir Removes the local clone of the submodule (keeps the description).
• rm-desc Removes the description of the submodule (keeps the local clone).
• rm Removes both the local clone and the description of the submodule.
• from-official Add Official Git Submodules to the description (and to .gitignore)
• seek Lists sub-repositories that could be added as submodules.

[submodule "ardupilot"] source = git@my_local_server.userdomain:repos/ardupilot source = https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot commit = 30e8160aa191e0a0e3a4676b33e0f153d09856ff enable = True [submodule "meta/git-submodules"] source = git@my_local_server.userdomain:repos/git-submodules source = https://git.noot-noot.org/clone/git-submodules source = https://github.com/nsensfel/git-submodules commit = d2c637e9f175b4a4618983253ec96a1edaff139b enable = True