Shared modules living in a submodule

The submodule is a directory tree of module directories, not a build of its own. It has no settings file and no root build script — the parent build's settings file is the only thing that turns those directories into Gradle projects.

# .gitmodules
[submodule "<shared>"]
    path = <shared>
    url = https://<host>/<org>/<shared>

// settings.gradle.kts — adapted
val sharedDir  = File(rootDir, "<shared>")          // the submodule's checkout root
val serviceDir = File(rootDir, "<shared>/service")

include(":common", ":data", ":domain", ":<service-a>")

project(":common").projectDir      = File(sharedDir, "common")
project(":<service-a>").projectDir = File(serviceDir, "<service-a>")

The Gradle path stays flat and short while the disk path is two levels inside a separate repository. The general form of that mapping, and what it does to typesafe project accessors, is in kmp-gradle-settings-catalog; this skill is about what the submodule adds on top.

Traps

A plain clone gives an empty directory and a failure that names the wrong thing. With the submodule uninitialised, projectDir points at a directory containing no build script. Nothing complains at that line. The build dies at the first module that depends on one of the mapped projects, reporting that a project "does not exist" — naming a module the new contributor has never heard of, in a file they did not open. Check before blaming the build:

git submodule status

A leading - on a line means that submodule is not initialised; a leading space means it is checked out at the recorded commit. The fix is git clone --recurse-submodules <url> for a clone that has not happened yet, or git submodule update --init --recursive for one that already exists.

Put the recursive clone in the README's first code block. A build error is not documentation. Check whether yours says it at all — grep -rn -i 'recurse-submodules\|submodule update' README.md CONTRIBUTING.md. If that returns nothing, every new contributor's first build fails and the error tells them nothing about why.

Continuous-integration checkout does not fetch submodules by default. Each job needs it named explicitly:

# adapted
- uses: actions/checkout@<version>
  with:
    submodules: 'recursive'

The rule that makes this auditable: any job that configures the build needs submodules; a job that only moves artifacts around does not. Count them per workflow:

for f in .github/workflows/*.yml; do
  echo "$f  checkouts=$(grep -c 'uses: actions/checkout' "$f")" \
       " recursive=$(grep -c "submodules: 'recursive'" "$f")" \
       " gradle=$(grep -c './gradlew' "$f")"
done

A workflow where checkouts exceeds recursive is not automatically wrong. The loop reports two such gaps here, in two different workflows, and they are the same job duplicated: a macOS wrapping step that downloads already-built artifacts, reads a tracked version file from the parent repo, and repackages them without ever invoking Gradle. Read the gap the loop prints rather than assuming one — a duplicated job is one decision to review, not two, and a job that runs Gradle on a plain checkout fails on the runner while passing on every developer machine, which already has the submodule.

The recorded commit is a tracked file in the parent, and moving shared code is two commits. Push in the submodule first, then commit the moved pointer in the parent — in that order, or the parent points at a commit no one else can fetch. The pointer is an ordinary staged change:

git diff -- <shared>          # a "Subproject commit <old>..<new>" hunk = the pointer moved

"It works locally, the runner builds old code" almost always means that second commit is still unstaged. The developer's tree has the new submodule commit checked out; the runner clones the pointer the parent recorded.

The checkout follows a recorded commit, not a branch — unless you ask for one. With no branch = key in .gitmodules, git submodule update restores the exact commit the parent pinned, and the branch name git submodule status prints in parentheses is only where that commit happens to sit. Tracking a branch is opt-in: a branch = entry plus git submodule update --remote. A git pull in the parent does not move the submodule.

Do not give the submodule its own settings file. A settings file marks a build boundary: it is what lets the tree be included or composited as a build in its own right, and it is what an IDE import latches onto — so the same directories end up claimed twice, once by the parent's projectDir mapping and once by that file. Exactly what breaks depends on how it gets wired, which is the reason to keep the rule absolute rather than reason it out each time. Check it — ls <shared>/settings.gradle* <shared>/build.gradle* must find nothing. Everything the shared modules need at the build level (repositories, resolution rules, plugin versions, the version catalog) comes from the parent, which is what lets the same tree be consumed by more than one application.

Anchor the mapping on rootDir, never on a relative walk-up out of the repo. A probe for a sibling checkout of the same name binds to whatever is parked one level up. This is easier to hit inside a submodule setup than elsewhere, because the directory name is short and generic by design.

Verifying it

The only check that reproduces what a new contributor gets is a fresh clone, deliberately without the flag:

git clone <url> /tmp/fresh-check && cd /tmp/fresh-check && git submodule status

Every line should print with a leading -. That is the state your README, your error messages and your first build have to survive. Then confirm the recovery path from there, and that the mapping still lines up:

git submodule update --init --recursive && git submodule status
find <shared> -maxdepth 3 -name 'build.gradle.kts' | wc -l
grep -c 'projectDir' settings.gradle.kts       # the two counts must agree