As the sibling comment said, the problem is that the dev used the SSH form which requires me to authenticate with the repo (i.e. I need to be given explicit per

As the sibling comment said, the problem is that the dev used the SSH form which requires me to authenticate with the repo (i.e. I need to be given explicit permission) whereas for public read access you want git submodule to use HTTPS Very easy to forget this when you're the dev and you already have access. Is there a way to have both? How does one say "I want submodules to authenticate people where possible but allow public read-only access if not"?