Git no-url-found-for-submodule-path A submodule configuration stanza names its path but carries no url key.

dev@local: ~/project — git

dev@local~/project$git status

Cloning into 'libs/shared-module'...

error: no url found for submodule path

Diagnostics Translation

A submodule configuration stanza names its path but carries no url key.

waiting for resolution...

MediumVersion Control System

Reviewed for reference consistency: August 11, 2026

Code is Safe

SECURE

Git has paused the operation to protect your code. No data has been lost or corrupted.

What To Know

A submodule's identity is half-recorded here: the path is known, but the versioned metadata carries no URL, so Git has nowhere to fetch the child repository from.

Where Did It Fail?

Working Tree

Your local files

add

Staging Index

Prepared changes

commit

Local Repo

Commit history

push/fetch

Remote Server

GitHub/GitLab

The error involves the internal Git database or commit history structure.

Commands That Trigger This

A hand-edited .gitmodules lost its url line during a merge conflict

A submodule entry was copy-pasted with only the path half

An automated tool wrote a placeholder stanza without filling in the URL

Technical Background

.gitmodules is the versioned contract between the superproject and its children. The gitlink entry in the index records that a submodule exists at a path; the .gitmodules stanza is where Git learns where to fetch it from. A path without a url leaves the gitlink pointing at nothing nameable.

The message is a sibling of 'no submodule mapping found in .gitmodules for path' — that one fires when the stanza is missing entirely, this one when the stanza exists but is incomplete. Both are repaired by editing the same file, whose layout is plain INI.

Underlying Causes

The url key is absent from the [submodule "<path>"] section

The url line was dropped while resolving a merge conflict in .gitmodules

Section headers and keys drifted out of alignment after manual edits

The stanza names one path while the url lives under a different section

Frequently Asked Questions

Submodule URLs also live in .git/config after initialization, but the versioned file is where the value must originate before init can copy it.

The path is the only identifier available; the URL is precisely the missing piece Git was searching for.

Related Git States

no-submodule-mapping-found-in-gitmodulesMedium

Git found a submodule reference without a matching configuration entry.

fatal-clone-of-submodule-failedMedium

Git successfully cloned the main repository but failed to download a required submodule.

submodule-repository-existsLow

Git cannot add a submodule because a Git repository already occupies that path.