Submodules¶

Large projects can be split into smaller parts using submodules. A submodule contains the name, url and revision of another repository. To create a submodule in an existing git repository you need to add a link to another repository containing the files of the submodule.

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Manage submodules¶

The current state of the submodules can be viewed with the Manage submodules function. All submodules are shown in the list on the left.

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Add submodule	Add a new submodule to the repository
Synchronize	Synchronizes the remote URL configuration setting to the value specified in `.gitmodules` for the selected submodule.
Initialize	Initialize the selected submodules, i.e. register each submodule name and url found in `.gitmodules` into `.git/config`. The submodule will also be updated.
Update	Update the registered submodules, i.e. clone missing submodules and checkout the commit specified in the index of the containing repository.

Add submodule¶

To add a new submodule choose Add submodule in the Manage submodules dialog.

_images/add_submodules.png

Path to submodule	Path to the remote repository to use as submodule.
Local path	Local path to this submodule, relative to the root of the current repository.
Branch	Branch to track.

Remove submodule¶

It is currently not possible to remove a submodule using the Git Extensions user interface. To remove a submodule you need to manually:

Delete the relevant line from the .gitmodules file.
Delete the relevant section from .git/config.
Run git rm --cached path_to_submodule (no trailing slash).
Commit and delete the now untracked submodule files.