Capistrano 3.1.x Strategy to deploy git projects with submodules.

submodule_strategy.rb

# Usage: 
# 1. Drop this file into lib/capistrano/submodule_strategy.rb
# 2. Add the following to your Capfile:
#   require 'capistrano/git'
#   require './lib/capistrano/submodule_strategy'
# 3. Add the following to your config/deploy.rb
#   set :git_strategy, SubmoduleStrategy

module SubmoduleStrategy
  # do all the things a normal capistrano git session would do
  include Capistrano::Git::DefaultStrategy
  
  # check for a .git directory
  def test
    test! " [ -d #{repo_path}/.git ] "
  end

  # same as in Capistrano::Git::DefaultStrategy
  def check
    test! :git, :'ls-remote', repo_url
  end

  def clone
    git :clone, '-b', fetch(:branch), '--recursive', repo_url, repo_path
  end

  # same as in Capistrano::Git::DefaultStrategy
  def update
    git :remote, :update
  end

  # put the working tree in a release-branch,
  # make sure the submodules are up-to-date
  # and copy everything to the release path
  def release
    release_branch = fetch(:release_branch, File.basename(release_path))
    git :checkout, '-B', release_branch, 
      fetch(:remote_branch, "origin/#{fetch(:branch)}")
    git :submodule, :update, '--init'
    context.execute "rsync -ar --exclude=.git\* #{repo_path}/ #{release_path}"
  end
end

Requiring 'capistrano/git' in your Capfile means that the git.rake is loaded twice, which leads to every Rake task in git.rake being defined twice, which leads to all of the git commands being run twice. Using the -B flag to force the second checkout to overwrite the first is a nasty hack to avoid the errors this throws. It would be better if this could be used without the extra require.

I realise that this is probably Capistrano's issue.

I'm going to try this solution unless there are any others recently..?

https://gist.github.com/seenmyfate/11206162