Chromium uses gclient (part of depot_tools) to manage dependencies. Information is stored in DEPS file located in the root of the project. In addition to DEPS file, gclient may read git submodules (see depot_tools submodules support).
gclient supports two dependency types: git and cipd.
Add your entry in DEPS file. Then, run gclient gitmodules to generate git submodules (it will contain .gitmodule change, and gitlink). Edit OWNERS file and add gitlink path. Then, run git add DEPS OWNERS to stage those files for commit, followed by git commit. Your change is now ready to be sent for a review using git cl upload.
For example, if new dependency is “src/foo/bar.git”, its gitlink path is “foo/bar”, and OWNERS entry at the top level is per-file foo/bar=*. You can confirm that by running git status. Example CL.
# manual edit of DEPS and OWNERS file (see changes below).
% gclient gitmodules
.gitmodules and gitlinks updated. Please check `git diff --staged`and commit those staged changes (`git commit` without -a)
% git add OWNERS DEPS # stage files
% git diff --cached # see staged changes
diff --git a/.gitmodules b/.gitmodules
index 29c355fa92e3d..89866442d45aa 100644
--- a/.gitmodules
+++ b/.gitmodules
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+[submodule "foo/bar"]
+ path = foo/bar
+ url = https://chromium.googlesource.com/foo/bar.git
[submodule "third_party/clang-format/script"]
path = third_party/clang-format/script
url = https://chromium.googlesource.com/external/github.com/llvm/llvm-project/clang/tools/clang-format.git
diff --git a/DEPS b/DEPS
index 44fbc53a0d53a..05481be5066ed 100644
--- a/DEPS
+++ b/DEPS
@@ -555,6 +555,10 @@ allowed_hosts = [
]
deps = {
+ 'src/foo/bar': {
+ 'url': Var('chromium_git') + '/foo/bar.git' + '@' +
+ '1111111111111111111111111111111111111111',
+ },
'src/third_party/clang-format/script':
Var('chromium_git') +
'/external/github.com/llvm/llvm-project/clang/tools/clang-format.git@' +
diff --git a/OWNERS b/OWNERS
index 55bfe60fcb03b..02b4117fca1ea 100644
--- a/OWNERS
+++ b/OWNERS
@@ -37,6 +37,7 @@ per-file README.md=*
per-file WATCHLISTS=*
# git submodules
+per-file foo/bar=*
per-file third_party/clang-format/script=*
per-file chrome/browser/resources/preinstalled_web_apps/internal=*
per-file chrome/installer/mac/third_party/xz/xz=*
diff --git a/foo/bar b/foo/bar
new file mode 160000
index 0000000000000..1111111111111
--- /dev/null
+++ b/foo/bar
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Subproject commit 1111111111111111111111111111111111111111
% git status
On branch test_newdep
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/main'.
Changes to be committed:
(use "git restore --staged <file>..." to unstage)
modified: .gitmodules
modified: DEPS
modified: OWNERS
new file: foo/bar
Changes not staged for commit:
(use "git add/rm <file>..." to update what will be committed)
(use "git restore <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
deleted: foo/bar
% # At this point, you can run gclient sync if you want to get the dependency.
% # But it's not required, and you can use `git cl upload`.
% git commit -m "[DEPS] Example of new dependency"
[test_newdep 9731cfb680756] [DEPS] Example of new dependency
4 files changed, 9 insertions(+)
create mode 160000 foo/bar
% git cl upload
Found change with 1 commit...
Running Python 3 presubmit upload checks ...
-- snip --
remote: https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/4923074 [DEPS] Example of new dependency [NEW]
-- snip --
If you want to roll dependency to a specific version, you can do by running the following:
gclient setdep -r {path to dependency}@{hash}
For example, let's say you want to roll boringssl in chromium/src to commit e4acd6cb568214b1c7db4e59ce54ea2e1deae1f5. You would run the following:
gclient setdep -r src/third_party/boringssl/src@e4acd6cb568214b1c7db4e59ce54ea2e1deae1f5
Under the hood, gclient understands DEPS file, and knows what needs to update. In the example above, it actually updates boringssl_revision variable that is used in boringssl deps declaration.
Example of DEPS file:
vars = {
'boringssl_git': 'https://boringssl.googlesource.com',
'boringssl_revision': 'e4acd6cb568214b1c7db4e59ce54ea2e1deae1f5',
}
deps = {
'src/third_party/boringssl/src':
Var('boringssl_git') + '/boringssl.git' + '@' + Var('boringssl_revision'),
}
It also updates gitlink if git submodules are used. Git status will show the following:
$ git status
-- snip --
Changes to be committed:
modified: DEPS
modified: third_party/boringssl/src
depot_tools also provides a roll-dep script which can roll the desired repository to the latest commit on main branch. roll-dep handles both DEPS and git submodules.
You can update things yourself by modifying the DEPS file directly. If git submodules are used, you also need to update gitlinks - an entry for submodules in the git database by using:
git update-index --add --cacheinfo 160000,{hash},{path}
git update-index instructs git to register git submodule change to the index (ie stages submodule for commit). Particularly, --cacheinfo argument instructs git to directly insert the specified info into the index: 160000 is gitlink mode (used by git submodules), {hash} is a new commit hash you want to roll, and path is relative path to git submodule.
Using the boringssl example above, the following will need to be run inside chromium/src worktree:
git update-index --add --cacheinfo 160000,e4acd6cb568214b1c7db4e59ce54ea2e1deae1f5,third_party/boringssl/src
Once executed, git status will report there is an update to the submodule, which you can commit as any other file change.
Alternatively, you can regenerate git submodules once you update DEPS file (see section below).
gclient doesn't provide a way to delete dependencies. You can delete dependency by manually editing DEPS file. If git submodules are used, you will also need to remove it from git:
git rm --cache {dependency}
or using the example from the previous section:
git rm --cache third_party/boringssl/src
Once git-rm is executed, you can proceed with committing your change. You should see change in DEPS, .gitmodule and {dependency}.
If there are many git dependency changes to DEPS file, it may be impractical to manually update-index. For those reasons, gclient provides a convenient way to regenerate git modules entries and to update .gitmodules file.
Once you are done with your DEPS modifications, run the following script in the root of you project:
gclient gitmodules
The script will create a new .gitmodules files and update all gitlinks. Please note that old gitlinks won't be deleted, and you will need to remove them manually (see section above for deleting dependencies).