Re: [Feature Request] Support for sharing root-level files across repositories

>
> On September 26, 2025 4:33 AM, George Ogden wrote:
> >Hello Git developers,
> >
> >Firstly, apologies if this has already been discussed or if there is a way to solve this
> >problem that I am not aware of.
> >
> >Motivation
> >
> >Git submodules are very useful for sharing directories between repositories.
> >However, in some workflows, there is a need to share a single file that must live in
> >the repository root.
> >
> >A concrete example is .pre-commit-config.yaml. I maintain a standard template
> >across many repositories. When I add a new hook or update a version, I have to
> >manually update the file in each repository. I could use a submodule for this, but
> >submodules always appear in a subdirectory — not at the root where tools expect
> >this file.
> >
> >The same issue arises with other configuration files that need to reside at the top
> >level of a project (linters, CI configs, licenses, etc.).
> >
> >Proposal
> >
> >It would be helpful if Git provided a way to share a file across repositories so that it
> >appears at the root of the working tree, without requiring a separate build step,
> >symlink, or copy operation.
> >
> >I understand there are alternative approaches (subtrees, packages, external
> >tooling), but they all involve extra indirection. Having first-class support within Git
> >for this use case would make it much simpler and more consistent.
> >
> >Thanks
> >
> >Thank you for your work maintaining and evolving Git! I would greatly appreciate
> >any feedback on whether this idea has been considered before, and if there are
> >technical reasons it may not fit Git’s model.
>
> I have been thinking about a current use case for this RFE. Consider
> GNU/Configure-based projects where we have config.guess and config.sub in the
> repository root. These two files are independent of the project itself and truly
> should be shared and managed from a single authoritative source. It can be a
> real delay/pain to wait for the project to manually update these two files
> from an upstream to get platform support for their project.
>
> In order to support something like this, we might need a submodule concept
> That supports something like a link upwards. Or this might be something
> That could be part of the sparse-checkout infrastructure. I'm not sure, but I
> Do think there is merit to this. It could also apply to organisations that have
> cross-application root certificates that need to be in the same directory
> as the application root.
>
> Just my musings.
> --Randall
>