gitman

Overview

Gitman is a language-agnostic dependency manager using Git. It aims to serve as a submodules replacement and provides advanced options for managing versions of nested Git repositories.

Setup

Requirements

Python 3.10+
Git 2.8+ (with stored credentials)

Installation

Install this tool globally with pipx (or pip):

$ pipx install gitman

or add it to your Poetry project:

$ poetry add gitman

Configuration

Generate a sample config file:

$ gitman init

or manually create one (gitman.yml or .gitman.yml) in the root of your working tree:

location: vendor/gitman

sources:
  - repo: "https://github.com/kstenerud/iOS-Universal-Framework"
    name: framework
    rev: Mk5-end-of-life
  - repo: "https://github.com/jonreid/XcodeCoverage"
    name: coverage
    links:
      - target: Tools/XcodeCoverage
  - repo: "https://github.com/dxa4481/truffleHog"
    name: trufflehog
    rev: master
    scripts:
      - chmod a+x truffleHog/truffleHog.py
  - repo: "https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome"
    name: fontawesome
    rev: master
    sparse_paths:
      - "webfonts/*"
  - repo: "https://github.com/google/material-design-icons"
    name: material-design-icons
    rev: master

groups:
  - name: code
    members:
      - framework
      - trufflehog
  - name: resources
    members:
      - fontawesome
      - material-design-icons

default_group: code

Ignore the dependency storage location:

$ echo vendor/gitman >> .gitignore

Usage

See the available commands:

$ gitman --help

Updating Dependencies

Get the latest versions of all dependencies:

$ gitman update

which will essentially:

Create a working tree at <root>/<location>/<name>
Fetch from repo and checkout the specified rev
Symbolically link each <location>/<name> from <root>/<link> (if specified)
Repeat for all nested working trees containing a config file
Record the actual commit SHAs that were checked out (with --lock option)
Run optional post-install scripts for each dependency

where rev can be:

all or part of a commit SHA: 123def
a tag: v1.0
a branch: main
a rev-parse date: 'main@{2015-06-18 10:30:59}'

Alternatively, get the latest versions of specific dependencies:

$ gitman update framework

or named groups:

$ gitman update resources

Restoring Previous Versions

Display the versions that are currently installed:

$ gitman list

Reinstall these specific versions at a later time:

$ gitman install

Deleting Dependencies

Remove all installed dependencies:

$ gitman uninstall

Resources

Release files for gitman 3.8.1

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for gitman 3.8.1
File	Size	Uploaded
gitman-3.8.1.tar.gz	32.5 kB	Mar 20, 2026	Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for gitman 3.8.1
File	Interpreter	ABI	Platform	Reset
gitman-3.8.1-py3-none-any.whl 41.8 kB Mar 20, 2026	Python 3	none	any	Details

Total release size: 74.2 kB

Release files / gitman-3.8.1.tar.gz

Download URL	gitman-3.8.1.tar.gz
Size	32.5 kB
Tags	Source
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`7f05c37042093c0d8e77bfc0e323007a92c4629f86497a42220e87530fcd3850`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`d56bb914d3e047f85307d1bb87367d4363bcf265cc75e794fdb1fb9665a41f60`
Upload date	Mar 20, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No
Uploaded via	`poetry/2.3.0 CPython/3.13.11 Darwin/24.6.0`

Release files / gitman-3.8.1-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL	gitman-3.8.1-py3-none-any.whl
Size	41.8 kB
Tags	Python 3
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`b9c0d0e614a0769f1a907b0290c6f4b203dffb4eb2de9d17c470f4d472ebd203`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`9e0467940d75602b66e7d7726d7841e2d8e927060f8a8e47f81afc3da4afd991`
Upload date	Mar 20, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No
Uploaded via	`poetry/2.3.0 CPython/3.13.11 Darwin/24.6.0`