When you are cloning a repository that contains one or more submodules, you need to explicitly fetch them after the clone. We can try this with our newly created submodule repository:
$ git clone super super_clone Cloning into 'super_clone'... done.
Now, initialize and update the submodules:
$ cd super_clone $ git submodule init Submodule 'lib_a' (https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Git-Version-Control-Cookbook-Second-Edition_lib_a.git) registered for path 'lib_a' $ git submodule update --remote Cloning into 'lib_a'... remote: Counting objects: 18, done. remote: Compressing objects: 100% (14/14), done. remote: Total 18 (delta 4), reused 17 (delta 3) Receiving objects: 100% (18/18), done. Resolving deltas: 100% (4/4), done. ...
