Strategies

Each vendored target has a strategy. The default is subtree because it gives the project a portable, reviewable copy of upstream source.

Subtree

Use subtree when the source is small enough to commit and you want every clone of your project to include it.

ingraft add effect --strategy subtree

Submodule

Use submodule when the upstream repository is large or you want a pinned git relationship without copying its contents into your own history.

ingraft add rust-lang/rust --strategy submodule

Submodules are also the preferred strategy when the vendor is meant to be edited. Use a fork URL and a branch in that fork so vendor patches live as normal commits that can be pushed and upstreamed:

ingraft add your-org/effect --strategy submodule --ref vendor-patches

See Editable Vendors for the full workflow.

Clone-ignore

Use clone-ignore when source should exist locally for agents and LSPs but should not be committed.

ingraft add Effect-TS/effect --strategy clone-ignore

If the project has a colocated jj repository, the CLI falls back to clone-ignore because jj does not yet support git subtree and submodule workflows directly.

Filters

Large or irrelevant files can be filtered during vendoring when the strategy supports it:

ingraft add Effect-TS/effect \
  --exclude "**/*.png" \
  --exclude-dir docs/generated \
  --max-file-size 1MB

This keeps non-source artifacts out of the vendor tree when they do not help the coding workflow.

Choosing for Ownership

Ownership model	Recommended strategy
Read-only reference source	subtree
Editable vendor with a fork or upstream PR path	submodule
Local scratch checkout	clone-ignore

The default subtree path optimizes for agent visibility. The fork-backed submodule path optimizes for patch ownership.