Submodules

Pushstack hosts Git repositories containing submodules, including private and nested submodules. A submodule is a tree entry with mode 160000: a pinned commit in another repository. Its objects stay in that repository. Push, fetch, clone and repack skip these external commits when walking the parent repository's object graph.

Using GitCopy Anchor Link

Commit both .gitmodules and the submodule entry in the parent repository. For another Pushstack repository under the same owner, use a relative URL:

git submodule add ../shared-library.git vendor/shared-library
git commit -m "Add shared library"
git push

In the Clone dialog, select Include submodules (recursive), or run:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://git.nandan.fyi/api/git/OWNER/REPO.git

For an existing clone, use git submodule update --init --recursive. After changing a submodule's checkout, commit and push its changes to its own repository first, then commit and push the updated pointer in the parent. Remove submodules with git rm, committing the .gitmodules change too. Use your Git credential helper with a Pushstack personal access token for private repositories. Access is checked separately on every repository; access to the parent does not grant access to a private submodule. External hosts use their own credentials. Relative URLs resolve against the parent's clone remote, not its web-page URL.

Browser and reviewsCopy Anchor Link

• Tree rows identify submodules and show their pinned commit. Opening one shows its repository URL, pinned SHA and pointer history, without trying to display it as a regular file.
• Repository URLs come from the root .gitmodules at the viewed revision. Pushstack, GitHub, GitLab.com and Bitbucket links can open the pinned commit. Other HTTP(S) hosts get a repository link. Local paths, command transports, URLs with credentials and unsupported URLs are not linked.
• Missing or ambiguous .gitmodules records still show the pinned SHA. Browsing never fetches a remote repository or executes config/includes.
• Commit and PR diffs show submodule additions, removals, pointer updates and file/directory conversions, with both object IDs. PR navigation uses the exact merge-base and head revisions used to calculate the diff.
• Unrelated web file edits preserve submodule entries and their modes. Add, update and remove submodules using Git; the browser does not edit another repository or advance its pointer automatically.

MergingCopy Anchor Link

Unchanged, identical and one-sided pointer updates merge normally, as do one-sided additions/deletions. Different updates to the same pointer, modify/delete conflicts and competing structural changes are reported as conflicts, without moving the target branch. Resolve these locally with Git, push the resolution, and retry the merge. Pushstack never guesses which external commit should win or fetches an external repository to infer its ancestry.

The native-Git smoke suite (pnpm smoke:git) verifies private nested submodules through push, recursive clone/update, web edits, repack and fresh clone, using isolated Git configuration and in-memory storage/database.