How to properly commit a git repo with repos in subdirectories?

Question

I have cloned few github repositories under one directory. Now I would like to make a repository one level above all of those repositories.

How can I do this properly ? Should I use submodules ?

Answer 1

Short answer: yes, you should use submodules because you've identified that these pieces should evolve separately.

Probably the easiest way to get it all in place is to create an empty folder, copy the "one directory up" content (anything not in the submodules) into it, commit, then pull in the submodules. This is because it's really easy to accidentally commit the submodule's code rather than referencing the submodule.