Did you try https://github.com/ingydotnet/git-subrepo https://github.com/ingydotnet/git-subrepo ? Looks like it vendors in other repositories, making submodule

Did you try https://github.com/ingydotnet/git-subrepo https://github.com/ingydotnet/git-subrepo ? Looks like it vendors in other repositories, making submodules entirely transparent for consumers and still allowing sumbodule workflow for authors.