It looks like git automatically ignores .git folders in subfolders of root repository.

(master)[/tmp] $ mkdir test_root (master)[/tmp] $ git init test_root Initialized empty Git repository in /tmp/test_root/.git/ (master)[/tmp] $ cd test test/ test_root/ (master)[/tmp] $ cd test_root/ (master)[/tmp/test_root] (master) $ ls (master)[/tmp/test_root] (master) $ git init test_child Initialized empty Git repository in /tmp/test_root/test_child/.git/ (master)[/tmp/test_root] (master) $ git status On branch master Initial commit nothing to commit (create/copy files and use "git add" to track) (master)[/tmp/test_root] (master) $ touch test_root_file (master)[/tmp/test_root] (master) $ cd test_child/ (master)[/tmp/test_root/test_child] (master) $ ls (master)[/tmp/test_root/test_child] (master) $ touch test_child_file (master)[/tmp/test_root/test_child] (master) $ cd .. (master)[/tmp/test_root] (master) $ git status On branch master Initial commit Untracked files: (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed) test_child/ test_root_file nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track) (master)[/tmp/test_root] (master) $ git add test_child/test_child_file (master)[/tmp/test_root] (master) $ git status On branch master Initial commit Changes to be committed: (use "git rm --cached <file>..." to unstage) new file: test_child/test_child_file Untracked files: (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed) test_root_file (master)[/tmp/test_root] (master) $ cd test_child/ (master)[/tmp/test_root/test_child] (master) $ git status On branch master Initial commit Untracked files: (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed) test_child_file nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track) (master)[/tmp/test_root/test_child] (master) $ git --version git version 1.9.1 $ git add test_root_file (master)[/tmp/test_root] (master) $ git status On branch master Initial commit Changes to be committed: (use "git rm --cached <file>..." to unstage) new file: test_child/test_child_file new file: test_root_file (master)[/tmp/test_root] (master) $ git commit -m'1 commit' [master (root-commit) 4d4b695] 1 commit 2 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) create mode 100644 test_child/test_child_file create mode 100644 test_root_file (master)[/tmp/test_root] (master) $ git show commit 4d4b69589bf4f471c3c784f95f447d2a40ee6d7d Author: Evgenii Shchemelev Date: Wed Jan 6 09:20:03 2016 +0200 1 commit diff --git a/test_child/test_child_file b/test_child/test_child_file new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e69de29 diff --git a/test_root_file b/test_root_file new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e69de29 

You can use git hooks to achieve what you want. Thinking out of the box, you could use pre-commit hook to rename the .git directory of your included project, eg. to ".git2", add all files in the latter project except the ".git2" directory, commit all, push it and finally use post-commit hook to rename ".git2" folder back to ".git" in your module.

1) Create pre-commit file under .git/hooks/ of your root repo with contents:

#!/bin/sh mv "vendor/modulename/.git" "vendor/modulename/.git2" git rm --cached vendor/modulename git add vendor/modulename/* git reset vendor/modulename/.git2 

2) Create post-commit file under .git/hooks/ also with contents:

#!/bin/sh mv "vendor/modulename/.git2" "vendor/modulename/.git" 

3) Change a file in your repo and finally:

git commit -a -m "Commit msg" git push 

For me this looks like a design error:

If you load a second project from the same repository as dependency, this project should be moved to a different repository.

And inside the vendor Directory place another .gitignore file with

# Ignore Git here .git # But not these files... !.gitignore 

The entire vendor folder should be ignored, not just the .git sub-directories. Which packages are used are stored in composer.json and composer.lock which are what you check into version control.

See: https://getcomposer.org/doc/faqs/should-i-commit-the-dependencies-in-my-vendor-directory.md

If you want to create a reusable package as part of your project, you have two options:

A) Use Composer to handle another repo

Add to composer.json...

{ "repositories": [ { "url": "https://github.com/l3pp4rd/DoctrineExtensions.git", "type": "git" } ], "require": { "gedmo/doctrine-extensions": "~2.3" } } 

B) Use a 2nd packages directory

You can create a packages directory and add it to your autoload paths. This will let you use a single Git repo for all the code (if you want to use two repos, you can use a Git submodule)

Add to composer.json...

"autoload": { "classmap": ["packages"] } 

For me, the most simple solution is using composer hooks. Your package treated as submodule is because there is exist .git folder, then you just need to delete it.

composer.json

"scripts": [ "post-autoload-dump": [ "rm -rf vendor/webdriver/.git" ] ] 

If you want to ignore nested submodule totally, what you can do (below I will assume your nested repo is called "vendor/")

1. inside vendor/ rename .git folder to .git_
2. in parent .gitignore file add: /vendor/.git_/
3. /vendor/.git_/ will be ignored and you can add and commit other nested files and folders.
4. in vendor/ rename .git_ to .git
5. in parent .gitignore change /vendor/.git_/ to /vendor/.git/

Now the /vendor/.git/ is ignored and all other vendor/ files and folders are committed.

I have done this several times and I think there may be easier way to do it but I have forgotten how. Anyway this works.

To not treat sub folder as a submodule, delete the .git folder. So that you won't see a folder with @number in the website. If you want to update the submodule. You can create a script like the following written in Shell

update.sh

git clone <url> <subfolder that you won't treat it as a module> rm -rf <subfolder>/.git/ git add <subfolder> git commit -m "Updated module" 

update.bat

git clone <url> <subfolder> rmdir /s /q <subfolder>\.git git add <subfolder> git commit -m "Updated module" 

I believe this is the best way to avoid @number in GitLab

You can refer my GitHub repository created for answering this question.