Mastering Git subtrees
Published on 30 January 2015 • 16 min

A month ago we were exploring Git submodules; I told you then our next in-depth article would be about subtrees, which are the main alternative.

Update March 25, 2016: I removed all the parts about our now-deprecated git-stree tool. You should look at the awesome git-subrepo project instead if you want that kind of goodness.

As before, we’ll dive deep and perform every common use-case step by step to illustrate best practices.

So here’s the promised article! If you haven’t read the submodules-related one, I urge you to read it first, if only to be able to contrast and compare both in a useful way, and to grasp the core needs better.

In particular, it is important that you assert you don’t have a choice and must resort to submodules or subtrees instead of a clean, versioned dependency management (which is always better, when doable).

We’ll contrast subtrees with submodules whenever relevant; if you have read the article in question, that’ll help you better internalize these details.

The terminology we’ll use here is the same as in our previous article: we’ll name “module” the third-party code we inject somewhere in our container codebase’s tree. The main project’s code, that uses the module internally, will be referred to as “container.”

Subtree fundamentals

A quick reminder of terminology first: with Git, a repo is local. The remote version, which is mostly use for archiving, collaboration, sharing, and CI triggers, is called a remote. In the remainder of this text, whenever you read “repo” or “Git repo”, remember it’s your local, interactive repo (that is, with a working directory alongside its .git root).

With subtrees, there are no nested repos: there’s only one repo, the container, just like a regular codebase. That means just one lifecycle, and no special tricks to keep in mind for commands and workflows, it’s business as usual. Ain’t life sweet?

Three approaches: pick one!

There are three technical ways to handle your subtrees; although it’s sometimes possible to mix these approaches, I recommend you pick one and stick with it, at least on a per-repo basis, to avoid trouble.

The manual way

Git does not provide a native subtree command, unlike what happens for submodules. Subtrees are not so much a feature as they are a concept, an approach to managing embedded code with Git. They mostly rely on the adequate use of classic porcelain commands (mostly merge and cherry-pick), along with a plumbing one (read-tree).

The manual approach works everywhere, and is actually quite simple, but requires a good understanding of the underlying notions so you execute the few procedures properly. We’ll use that as a starting point, because it offers the best degree of control over operations, and leaves us with complete freedom in how we manage history (including its graph) and branches…

The `git subtree` contrib script

In June 2012, with version 1.7.11, Git started bundling a third-party contrib script name git-subtree.sh in its official distro; it went as far as adding a git-subtree binding to it among its installed binaries, so that you could type git subtree and feel like it were a “native” command.

Integration stops there, however; the “documentation” is not a man page, and is therefore not installed as such. The usual help calls (man git-subtree, git help subtree or git subtree --help) are not implemented. A git subtree with no arguments dumps a short synopsis, without further info. Only the text file linked at the beginning of this paragraph provides info, and it is buried down in the contrib/ directory of your Git install.

This script, that I will henceforth refer to as git subtree, has a few notable merits: mostly it is robust and offers familiar syntaxes (add, pull, push…) on top of operations that are sometimes complex. However, it also comes with a few operations (e.g. split) and notions (e.g. --ignore-joins and --rejoin) that are rather confusing at first, not to mention its very peculiar understanding of --squash…

Most importantly, it maintains a subtree-specific “branch” that gets merged on every git subtree pull and git subtree merge. This means it will clutter your graph forever, and I, for one, have a strong distaste for this.

Another issue is, it won’t let you pick which local subtree commits to backport with git subtree push: it’s an all-or-nothing affair. This contradicts one of the key benefits of subtrees, which is to be able to mix container-specific customizations with general-purpose fixes and enhancements.

Still, it’s been here for a while and has therefore been considerably tested (both in the test suite and battle-testing sense), which is not to be dismissed.

`git-subrepo`

For a while, we used our own custom solution, named git-stree, that did a reasonable job meeting all our needs, but had a number of dusty corner cases where it would just fall apart. This article used to detail that tool, but starting March 25, 2016 it’s officially deprecated.

This is in favor of a wonderful third-party tool called git-subrepo. If you want to play with subrepo management in a flexible, well-tested, well-documented and rock-solid way, check it out.

This article won’t demonstrate the git-subrepo approaches just now, but rest assured they work. We may find time for that in the future. In the meantime, their docs and guides are great, give it a spin!

Subtrees, step by step

So, let’s start exploring every common use-case for subtrees in a collaborative project; we’ll detail each of the three approaches, every time.

In order to facilitate your following along, I’ve put together a few example repos with their “remotes” (actually just directories). You can uncompress the archive wherever you want, then open a shell (or Git Bash, if you’re on Windows) in the git-subs directory it creates:

Download the example repos

You’ll find three directories in there:

main acts as the container repo, local to the first collaborator,
plugin acts as the central maintenance repo for the module, and
remotes contains the filesystem remotes for the two previous repos.

In the example commands below, the prompt always displays which repo we’re into.

If you’d like to test out multiple approaches in parallel, I suggest you duplicate the unzipped root git-subs directory as many times as you need (once, or twice) so you can compare the procedures as you go.

Our subtree structure

It’s pretty simple:

.
├── README.md
├── lib
│   └── index.js
└── plugin-config.json

Every time, we’ll want to use that subtree in our container codebase, in the vendor/plugins/demo subfolder.

Adding a subtree

Manually

Let’s start by defining a named remote for our subtree’s central repo, so we don’t clutter our CLIs with its path/URL later:

manually/main (master u=) $ git remote add plugin ../remotes/plugin
manually/main (master u=) $ git fetch plugin
warning: no common commits
remote: Counting objects: 11, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (9/9), done.
remote: Total 11 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0)
Unpacking objects: 100% (11/11), done.
From ../remotes/plugin
 * [new branch]      master     -> plugin/master
manually/main (master u=) $

We now need to update our index with the contents of this plugin’s master branch, and update our working directory with it; and all this needs to happen in the proper subfolder, too. This is what read-tree does. We’ll use the -u option so the working directory is maintained along with the index.

manually/main (master u=) $ git read-tree \
  --prefix=vendor/plugins/demo -u plugin/master
manually/main (master + u=) $ git status
On branch master
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'.
Changes to be committed:
  (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
  new file:   vendor/plugins/demo/README.md
  new file:   vendor/plugins/demo/lib/index.js
  new file:   vendor/plugins/demo/plugin-config.json

Awesome. Now let’s finalize that with a commit:

manually/main (master + u=) $ git commit \
  -m "Added demo plugin subtree in vendor/plugins/demo"
[master 76b347a] Added demo plugin subtree in vendor/plugins/demo
 3 files changed, 19 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 vendor/plugins/demo/README.md
 create mode 100644 vendor/plugins/demo/lib/index.js
 create mode 100644 vendor/plugins/demo/plugin-config.json
manually/main (master u+1) $

There we are! Nothing too fancy!

With `git subtree`

Here too, naming the subtree’s remote will shorten later CLI calls. No need for a manual fetch though: git subtree will do it when necessary. We’ll use its add subcommand:

git-subtree/main (master u=) $ git remote add plugin \
  ../remotes/plugin/
git-subtree/main (master u=) $ git subtree add \
  --prefix=vendor/plugins/demo plugin master
git fetch plugin master
warning: no common commits
remote: Counting objects: 11, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (9/9), done.
remote: Total 11 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0)
Unpacking objects: 100% (11/11), done.
From ../remotes/plugin
 * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
 * [new branch]      master     -> plugin/master
Added dir 'vendor/plugins/demo'
git-subtree/main (master u+4) $

OK, notice the last prompt: the command merged our plugin’s history with our container’s. Let’s verify that with a log:

git-subtree/main (master u+4) $ git log --oneline --graph \
  --decorate
*   32e539d (HEAD, master) Add 'vendor/plugins/demo/' from…
|\
| * fe64799 (plugin/master) Fix repo name for main project…
| * 89d24ad Main files (incl. subdir) for plugin, to populate its…
| * cc88751 Initial commit
* b90985a (origin/master) Main files for the project, to populate…
* e052943 Initial import

If you’re like me, you’re not too fond of polluting your container history with the commit details from the subtree… You might think we have a solution in the --squash option git-subtree offers on its add, pull and merge subcommands. After all, git merge --squash produces a squash commit instead of a regular merge, which better matches what we’re after.

Think again:

git-subtree/main (master u+4) $ git reset --hard @{u}
HEAD is now at b90985a Main files for the project, to populate its…
git-subtree/main (master u=) $ git subtree add \
  --prefix=vendor/plugins/demo --squash plugin master
git fetch plugin master
From ../remotes/plugin
 * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
Added dir 'vendor/plugins/demo'
git-subtree/main (master u+2) $

Noticed the u+2 in the prompt, instead of u+1? Let’s check:

git-subtree/main (master u+2) $ git log --oneline --graph \
  --decorate
*   352af7a (HEAD, master) Merge commit '03e04026fdba2ff1200a226c3…
|\
| * 03e0402 Squashed 'vendor/plugins/demo/' content from commit…
* b90985a (origin/master) Main files for the project, to populate…
* e052943 Initial import

There you have it… Instead of doing a regular squash commit, it squashes the subtree’s history, makes a commit out of it its dedicated “branch” (not an actual branch, but an unnamed, untagged sequence of commits), and merges that.

This behavior makes sense when considering the technical implementation of git subtree and the features it offers. Still, I don’t like it. I just don’t think it’s worth polluting your graph like that (as you’ll see in later updates, it gets ugly pretty fast).

Grabbing/updating a repo that uses subtrees

Alright! Now that we saw how to add a subtree, what do our colleagues have to do to get these in their local repos?

After all, if we were to use submodules, they’d need either a git clone --recursive to grab it, or the bulletproof sequence of git fetch + git submodule sync --recursive + git submodule update --init --recursive for an existing repo. Ain’t life fun.

Well, you know what? With subtrees, they don’t need to do anything special. The reason is simple: there’s just one repo: the container.

With subtrees, cloning/pulling just works.

Too good to be true? Let’s check. We’ll start by sharing our commit(s) that added the subtree, so our colleagues can clone or pull their repos from the remote. For every copy of the test folder you made, use a git push.

git-subtree/main (master u+2) $ git push
…
manually/main (master u+1) $ git push
…

To get an up-to-date repo, you just need a regular clone/pull. This works regardless of your original adding approach, so I’ll just show it once:

manually/main (master u=) $ cd ..
manually $ git clone remotes/main colleague
Cloning into 'colleague'...
done.
manually $ cd colleague
manually/colleague (master u=) $ tree vendor
vendor
└── plugins
    └── demo
        ├── README.md
        ├── lib
        │   └── index.js
        └── plugin-config.json
3 directories, 3 files

(In the Git Bash you get on Windows, you won’t have the tree command; same for OSX or various bare-bones Linux distros: you’ll need to install the command. If you don’t have it, just check the tree using your file explorer or a basic ls -lR command instead.)

Getting an update from the subtree’s remote

Now that we have our own repo (main) and our “colleague’s” (colleague) in place to collaborate, we’ll switch to a third person’s cap: the one in charge of maintaining the plugin. Let’s hop to it:

manually/colleague (master u=) $ cd ../plugin
manually/plugin (master u=) $ git log --oneline
fe64799 Fix repo name for main project companion demo repo
89d24ad Main files (incl. subdir) for plugin, to populate its tree.
cc88751 Initial commit

Now, let’s make two pseudo-commits and publish them on the remote:

manually/plugin (master u=) $ date > fake-work
manually/plugin (master % u=) $ git add fake-work
manually/plugin (master + u=) $ git commit -m "Pseudo-commit #1"
[master 5048a7d] Pseudo-commit #1
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
 create mode 100644 fake-work
manually/plugin (master u+1) $ date >> fake-work
manually/plugin (master * u+1) $ git commit -am "Pseudo-commit #2"
…
manually/plugin (master u+2) $ git push

Finally, let’s switch back to our “first developer” cap:

manually/plugin (master u=) $ cd ../main
manually/main (master u=) $

Remember to replicate these operations on every copy of the test folder you’d have made to test multiples approaches (like git subtree)…

Let’s now see how we can go about getting these two new commits back in our container’s subtree.

Manually

It’s actually pretty easy; we just need to update our local cache from the subtree’s remote, then do a subtree merge (using a squash commit, too, to avoid merging histories). Most of the time, we won’t even have to specify the subdirectory prefix, Git will figure it out:

manually/main (master u=) $ git fetch plugin
remote: Counting objects: 6, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (5/5), done.
remote: Total 6 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0)
Unpacking objects: 100% (6/6), done.
From ../remotes/plugin
   fe64799..dc995bf  master     -> plugin/master
manually/main (master u=) $ git merge -s subtree --squash \
  plugin/master --allow-unrelated-histories
Squash commit -- not updating HEAD
Automatic merge went well; stopped before committing as requested
manually/main (master + u=) $ git status
On branch master
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'.
Changes to be committed:
  (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
  new file:   vendor/plugins/demo/fake-work
manually/main (master + u=) $ git commit -m "Updated the plugin"
[master 4f9a839] Updated the plugin
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 vendor/plugins/demo/fake-work
manually/main (master u+1) $

As always, a squash merge doesn’t finalize the commit; it’s quite handy, too, as we may need to adjust other parts of the container code to work properly with the subtree’s updated code. This way we can make a single, working commit.

It can happen that the heuristics use by the subtree merge strategy to figure out the subdirectory prefix get confused; you can then reset the merge and opt instead for the default strategy (recursive) with an explicit prefix through its subtree option. The merge command would then be:

git merge -X subtree=vendor/plugins/demo --squash plugin/master

A tad longer, but handy when default subtree heuristics lose their marbles.

With `git subtree`

This is what its pull subcommand is for. Just like the initial add, we’ll reduce the history noise by using --squash. And we need to repeat the entire settings for every call:

git-subtree/main (master u=) $ git subtree pull \
  --prefix=vendor/plugins/demo --squash plugin master
remote: Counting objects: 6, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (5/5), done.
remote: Total 6 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0)
Unpacking objects: 100% (6/6), done.
From ../remotes/plugin
 * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
   fe64799..2872e5d  master     -> plugin/master
Merge made by the 'recursive' strategy.
 vendor/plugins/demo/fake-work | 2 ++
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 vendor/plugins/demo/fake-work
git-subtree/main (master u+2) $

And it will still maintain that pseudo-branch and smear the graph:

git-subtree/main (master u+2) $ git log --oneline --graph \
  --decorate
*   1782c08 (HEAD, master) Merge commit '636facf64d416210e90bb8b83…
|\
| * 636facf Squashed 'vendor/plugins/demo/' changes from fe64799..…
* |   352af7a (origin/master) Merge commit '03e04026fdba2ff1200a22…
|\ \
| |/
| * 03e0402 Squashed 'vendor/plugins/demo/' content from commit fe…
* b90985a Main files for the project, to populate its tree a bit.
* e052943 Initial import

Oh GAWD… And remember: your container only has this one master branch right now. Clearly reflected by this graph, right? Tsk tsk.

Updating a subtree in-place in the container

It can happen that subtree code can only be used or tested inside container code; most themes and plugins have such constraints. In that situation, you’ll be forced to evolve your subtree code straight inside the container codebase, before finally backporting it to its remote.

Another common occurrence, which subtrees are good at but submodules cannot cleanly accommodate, is the need to customize the subtree’s code in a container-specific way, without pushing these changes back upstream.
You should be careful to distinguish between both situations, putting each use-case into its own commits.

On the other hand, when subtree changes require adjustments in the rest of the container code, you don’t have to make two separate commits for it (one for subtree code, one for container code): the commands we’ll use later for backporting can figure the split out, and this will spare you a failing-tests, partly-implemented commit in the container codebase…

Regardless of the selected approach, these updates are freely performed on the container codebase, which is the unique repo we’re dealing with when performing them. Collaborators don’t need any special procedure: the subtree has no special status. This is an enormous advantage over submodules, for which this section would be waaaay longer…

Subtree updates can be freely performed within the container codebase.

Let’s unroll a scenario in which we’ll mix four types of commits:

Commits touching only the subtree, intended for backport (e.g. fixes);
Commits touching only container code;
Commits touching both container and subtree code, the latter part being intended for backport;
Commits touching only the subtree, in a container-specific way that is not to be backported.

You should copy-paste the following set of commands (intentionally listed without prompts) in the main folder of every copy you made (one per approach). Make sure you read the commands’ output and check nothing seems to break, though! You never know…

git push
echo '// Now super fast' >> vendor/plugins/demo/lib/index.js
git commit -am "[To backport] Faster plugin"
date >> main-file-1
git commit -am "Container-only work"
date >> vendor/plugins/demo/fake-work
date >> main-file-2
git commit -am "[To backport] Timestamping (requires container tweaks)"
echo '// Container-specific' >> vendor/plugins/demo/lib/index.js
git commit -am "Container-specific plugin update"

Backporting to the subtree’s remote

Now let’s see how to backport the necessary commits, once for each approach. We’ll start by looking at our recent commits to keep our history fresh in mind:

manually/main (master u+4) $ git log --oneline --decorate --stat -5
28e310b (master) Container-specific plugin update
 vendor/plugins/demo/lib/index.js | 1 +
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
71d2d12 [To backport] Timestamping (requires container tweaks)
 main-file-2                   | 1 +
 vendor/plugins/demo/fake-work | 1 +
 2 files changed, 2 insertions(+)
c693673 Container-only work
 main-file-1 | 1 +
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
92bc02d [To backport] Faster plugin
 vendor/plugins/demo/lib/index.js | 1 +
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
4f758af (origin/master) Updated the plugin
 vendor/plugins/demo/fake-work | 2 ++
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)

Manually

We could create synthetic commits in the middle of nowhere, but that’s fugly. I favor creating a local branch specifically for backporting, and have it track the proper remote for our plugin:

manually/main (master u+4) $ git checkout -b backport-plugin \
  plugin/master
manually/main (backport-plugin u=) $

Now let’s cherry-pick the commits we’re interested in (adding a -x into the mix so the commit message has extra lines detailing the source for each cherry pick).

manually/main (backport-plugin u=) $ git cherry-pick -x master~3
[backport-plugin 953ec4d] [To backport] Faster plugin
 Date: Thu Jan 29 21:54:45 2015 +0100
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
manually/main (backport-plugin u+1) $ git cherry-pick -x \
  --strategy=subtree master^
[backport-plugin 34f50a4] [To backport] Timestamping (requires con…
 Date: Thu Jan 29 21:55:00 2015 +0100
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
manually/main (backport-plugin u+1) $ git log --oneline \
  --decorate --stat -2
34f50a4 (HEAD, backport-plugin) [To backport] Timestamping (requir…
 fake-work | 1 +
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
953ec4d [To backport] Faster plugin
 lib/index.js | 1 +
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
manually/main (backport-plugin u+2) $ git push plugin HEAD:master
Counting objects: 7, done.
Delta compression using up to 4 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (6/6), done.
Writing objects: 100% (7/7), 877 bytes | 0 bytes/s, done.
Total 7 (delta 2), reused 0 (delta 0)
To ../remotes/plugin
   dc995bf..34f50a4  backport-plugin -> master

Just like with git merge -s subtree plugin/master earlier on, Git’s builtin directory heuristics usually do just fine. Astute readers will probably have noticed that we didn’t even have to specify the subtree strategy whenever the heuristics worked out, thanks to non-ambiguous paths in our working directories (the backport branch has different, unprefixed contents).

However, it is prudent to specify --strategy=subtree (-s means something else in cherry-pick) to make sure files outside of the subtree (elsewhere in container code) will get quietly ignored, as would happen for main-file-2 in master^. If you forget this option, Git will refuse to complete the cherry-pick, as it would believe our side (backport-plugin) just removed that file (you’d see a deleted by us conflict). So you’d better use that specific option all the time, just to be on the safe side.

The log above confirms the backported files are put in the “plugin root,” properly unprefixed. And the final push lets us publish that backport to the central remote for the plugin.

With `git subtree`

Sure, there’s a pretty git subtree push subcommand, but it has a significant drawback: it backports every single commit that touched the subtree. You can’t pick the relevant commits. So our last commit, which was container-specific, gets cargoed along… Grmbl. This is not what we want here, but I’ll show you the command anyway:

# BEWARE: NOT WHAT WE WANT. Backports everything, no choice.
git-subtree/main (master u+4) $ git subtree push \
  -P vendor/plugins/demo plugin master
git push using:  plugin master
-n 1/      10 (0)
-n 2/      10 (1)
-n 3/      10 (2)
-n 4/      10 (2)
-n 5/      10 (3)
-n 6/      10 (3)
-n 7/      10 (4)
-n 8/      10 (5)
-n 9/      10 (6)
-n 10/      10 (7)
Counting objects: 11, done.
Delta compression using up to 4 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (9/9), done.
Writing objects: 100% (11/11), 1.11 KiB | 0 bytes/s, done.
Total 11 (delta 4), reused 0 (delta 0)
To ../remotes/plugin/
   2872e5d..e857a74  e857a74119c3e1c1b237b367c4a6c8f79deca1a7 -> m…
git-subtree/main (master u+4) $ git log --oneline --decorate -4 \
  plugin/master
e857a74 (plugin/master) Container-specific plugin update
ddabc13 [To backport] Timestamping (requires container tweaks)
73a22ea [To backport] Faster plugin
2872e5d Pseudo-commit #2

Note the latest (top) backport, that we don’t want here…

Removing a subtree

It’s just a directory in your repo. A good ol’ git rm will do, regardless of the approach you used.

main (master u=) $ git rm -r vendor/plugins/demo
rm 'vendor/plugins/demo/README.md'
rm 'vendor/plugins/demo/fake-work'
rm 'vendor/plugins/demo/lib/index.js'
rm 'vendor/plugins/demo/plugin-config.json'
main (master + u=) $ git commit -m "Removing demo subtree"
[master 3893865] Removing demo subtree
 4 files changed, 24 deletions(-)
 delete mode 100644 vendor/plugins/demo/README.md
 delete mode 100644 vendor/plugins/demo/fake-work
 delete mode 100644 vendor/plugins/demo/lib/index.js
 delete mode 100644 vendor/plugins/demo/plugin-config.json
main (master u+1) $

Turning a directory into a subtree

This is the last “fun” use-case: you want to take code that always was an integral part of your container codebase, and extract it for sharing between multiple codebases.

Let’s start by creating a “local remote” folder. You can copy-paste these:

cd ..
mkdir remotes/myown
cd remotes/myown
git init --bare
cd ../../main

We’ll then perform a series of mixed commits touching (or not) a subdirectory in our codebase. I’ll re-use the earlier commands, but change the directory name.

Just copy-paste the commands below in your “manually” copy and, if you played with git subtree, in the matching copy as well:

mkdir -p lib/plugins/myown/lib
echo '// Yo!' > lib/plugins/myown/lib/index.js
git add lib/plugins/myown
git commit -m "Plugin sez: Yo, dawg."
date >> main-file-1
git commit -am "Container-only work"
echo '// Now super fast' > lib/plugins/myown/lib/index.js
date >> main-file-2
git commit -am "Faster plugin (requires container tweaks)"
git push

This should create three commits, two of which touch the lib/plugins/myown subdirectory. Then it publishes to the remote (just to avoid +n in our prompts in the following examples).

Manually

The idea is to create a special branch for the future subtree, and filter down its history so it only keeps commits that touched the subdirectory, rewriting the tree root as it goes.

This sounds like heavy-lifting, but it precisely matches what a mode of the “bulldozer” git filter-branch command does: the --subdirectory-filter option. See for yourself:

manually/main (master u=) $ git checkout -b split-plugin
manually/main (split-plugin) $ git filter-branch \
  --subdirectory-filter lib/plugins/myown
Rewrite 973cfacecb645f66b89accedac8780c19140401b (2/2)
Ref 'refs/heads/split-plugin' was rewritten

manually/main (split-plugin) $ git log --oneline --decorate
5af0de1 (HEAD, split-plugin) Faster plugin (requires container twe…
4fc711a Plugin sez: Yo, dawg.

manually/main (split-plugin) $ tree
.
└── lib
    └── index.js

1 directory, 1 file

(Again, tree is not necessarily available on your setup; if it’s missing, go with a basic ls -lR instead.)

Now we just need to push that to the proper remote:

manually/main (split-plugin) $ git remote add myown \
  ../remotes/myown
manually/main (split-plugin) $ git push -u myown \
  split-plugin:master
Counting objects: 8, done.
Delta compression using up to 4 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
Writing objects: 100% (8/8), 617 bytes | 0 bytes/s, done.
Total 8 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
To ../remotes/myown
 * [new branch]      split-plugin -> master
Branch split-plugin set up to track remote branch master from myow…
manually/main (split-plugin u=) $

At this stage, you can kill the backport branch if you think you won’t need it anymore for later backports. Otherwise just let it be…

There’s no need to replace the lib/plugins/myown subdirectory in master with the result of a read-tree, either: future merge -s subtree --squash calls will work just fine, as if you had injected the contents as a subtree in the first place. Isn’t it handy?

With `git subtree`

There is a split subcommand intended for about the same thing. Assuming you copy-pasted the series of commit commands from earlier, it would look like this:

git-subtree/main (master u=) $ git subtree split \
  -P lib/plugins/myown -b split-plugin
-n 1/      14 (0)
-n 2/      14 (1)
-n 3/      14 (2)
-n 4/      14 (3)
-n 5/      14 (4)
-n 6/      14 (5)
-n 7/      14 (6)
-n 8/      14 (7)
-n 9/      14 (8)
-n 10/      14 (9)
-n 11/      14 (10)
-n 12/      14 (11)
-n 13/      14 (12)
-n 14/      14 (13)
Created branch 'split-plugin'
a54c695c65db858a68720dd9b93061ea28d13243

git-subtree/main (master u=) $

You can then repeat the remote-updating commands we had, to publish the final result:

git-subtree/main (split-plugin) $ git remote add myown \
  ../remotes/myown
git-subtree/main (split-plugin) $ git push -u myown \
  split-plugin:master
Counting objects: 8, done.
Delta compression using up to 4 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
Writing objects: 100% (8/8), 556 bytes | 0 bytes/s, done.
Total 8 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0)
To ../remotes/myown
 * [new branch]      split-plugin -> master
Branch split-plugin set up to track remote branch master from myow…
git-subtree/main (split-plugin u=) $

However, git subtree will refuse later squash pulls, as it doesn’t find any trace of earlier adds, and it doesn’t rely on Git’s builtin heuristics to figure it out, using its own technical implementation instead:

git-subtree/main (split-plugin u=) $ git checkout master
git-subtree/main (master u=) $ git subtree pull --squash \
  -P lib/plugins/myown myown master
From ../remotes/myown
 * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
Can't squash-merge: 'lib/plugins/myown' was never added.

Long story short, you either forget about squashes and merge the subtree’s history from now on (ugh!), or replace the legacy subdirectory with a formal subtree addition:

git-subtree/main (master u=) $ git rm -r lib/plugins/myown
rm 'lib/plugins/myown/lib/index.js'

git-subtree/main (master + u=) $ git commit \
  -m "Removing lib/plugins/myown for subtree replacement"
[master bf59e62] Removing lib/plugins/myown for subtree replacement
 1 file changed, 1 deletion(-)
 delete mode 100644 lib/plugins/myown/lib/index.js

git-subtree/main (master u+1) $ git subtree add \
  -P lib/plugins/myown --squash myown master
git fetch myown master
From ../remotes/myown
 * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
Added dir 'lib/plugins/myown'

git-subtree/main (master u+3) $

After that, git subtree pull -P lib/plugins/myown --squash myown master will work… Now that’s a nice set of flaming hoops to jump through…

So, which approach should I use?

The important thing is to grok the manual approach: it lets you do what you want, however you want to do it, and therefore devise a series of commands that best fits your strategic choices about branches, commits, backports, etc.

Would you like to go one step further and fully master Git core concepts, or to get advice on how to guarantee the quality of your Git projects? We can help or train you - just tell us what you need!

Mastering Git subtrees Published on 30 January 2015 • 16 min

Subtree fundamentals

Three approaches: pick one!

The manual way

The git subtree contrib script

git-subrepo

Subtrees, step by step

Our subtree structure

Adding a subtree

Manually

With git subtree

Grabbing/updating a repo that uses subtrees

Getting an update from the subtree’s remote

Manually

With git subtree

Updating a subtree in-place in the container

Backporting to the subtree’s remote

Manually

With git subtree

Removing a subtree

Turning a directory into a subtree

Manually

With git subtree

So, which approach should I use?

Mastering Git subtrees
Published on 30 January 2015 • 16 min

The `git subtree` contrib script

`git-subrepo`

With `git subtree`

With `git subtree`

With `git subtree`

With `git subtree`