Growing a module in place

A new app or package is easier to get working inside the distribution, where the workspace already resolves it and there is one repository to run. It only wants its own history once it works.

fg-dist extract packages/charts --url https://github.com/acme/charts.git

packages/charts is now a repository and a submodule of this one
Shipping @acme/charts@0.3.0
Tagged v0.3.0, so sync can track it
origin is https://github.com/acme/charts.git

Push it before anyone else clones this:
    git -C packages/charts push -u origin main --tags
Then commit the new submodule here.

What happens

The directory becomes a repository, its contents are committed, its manifest version becomes its first tag, and the distribution picks it straight back up as a submodule.

Nothing is re-cloned and nothing moves on disk. git submodule add adopts a repository that is already at the path rather than fetching one, so this works before the remote exists — which is the point, since you will not have created it yet.

Afterwards

Push it. Until you do, the submodule points at a remote nobody else can fetch: your own clone is fine and everyone else's is broken. Then commit the new submodule pointer in the distribution.

An existing repository at the path is kept, history and all. An SSH url is rewritten to https like everywhere else, and --no-tag skips the tag — take that if the module is not ready to claim a version.