magoo

This is Magoo, he helps you manage git submodules with ease, like npm or cargo, but for submodules.

Adding a submodule is easy, but have you ever struggled with:

• How do I update a submodule?
• How do I delete a submodule?
• How do I tell my colleagues how to update their submodules after I update them????

saves all of us by running the git commands for us. He figures out all the relevant information from the git repository itself. There's no extra files required and works out of the box for all git repos with submodules.

does not like pipelines. Please simply let your pipeline checkout the submodules (recursively if needed). For example, if you are using GitHub Actions:

- uses: actions/checkout@v4
  with:
    submodules: recursive

Install

As a CLI tool

cargo install magoo

As a library

To add as a dependency:

cargo add magoo

See https://docs.rs/magoo for more info.

Use

runs git commands using sub-processes, so you must have git installed on the system. By default, checks if the git version is supported. To print what version is supported manually, run:

magoo status --git

Unsupported versions might work as well, you can let know with the --allow-unsupported flag (note it needs to be before the subcommand)

magoo --allow-unsupported status

Add a submodule

magoo install URL PATH

(magoo install --help to see a full list of options)

The arguments for adding a submodule is very similar to git submodule add

needs to know the following to add a submodule.:

Arg	Description	Default
URL	The git URL like https://github.com/owner/repo. SSH and relative URLs also work. See git submodule add for details	URL is required
PATH	The path in your repo the module should be at	Directory at the top level with the same name as the submodule repo
BRANCH	The branch to update to when you run magoo update	None (HEAD)
NAME	Name to identify the submodule for other commands	same as PATH

It's recommended to always specify the BRANCH. Git by default will use the HEAD branch, which is usually not what you want.

The submodule will not be cloned recursively when adding. If you need, run magoo install after the add to clone the recursive submodules.

Initialize/pull the submodules

magoo install

will ensure the submodules are cloned/updated to the commit stored in the index. You should run magoo install every time you pull the changes from others, in case they were updated. It also deletes submodules that are deleted by others (by running status --fix, see below).

By default, submodules are installed recursively, you can use --no-recursive to only install the ones specified by the top-level repo.

Show submodule status

magoo status [--long] [--fix]

will show you everything he knows about submodules in the current repo.

The --fix option will bring the submodule states back to a consistent state that likes. The state could be inconsistent if the git files were changed manually or by running individual git commands, or by a remote change.

will fix the state by either de-initializing the submodule (if possible), or delete the submodule.

Update submodules

magoo update

This tells to update all submodules to be sync with the remote BRANCH (specified when submodule was added). See magoo update --help for more info.

You can also:

• Update one submodule to the latest

  magoo update NAME

• Change the branch and/or URL of a submodule

  magoo update NAME --branch BRANCH --url URL

Remove submodules

magoo remove NAME

will remove every trace of the submodule, with this single command.

Note: Newer versions of git lets you delete a submodule with git rm. However, it doesn't delete the content in .git/modules. deletes those as well.