Dave: usually if git clone fails, you don't end up with a partially-cloned repo this is not the case if one submodule of git clone --recursive fails Jonathan: filing, thanks. I suspect I would be happiest with changing the "usually if git clone fails, you don't end up with ..." half of it, though 😃 Dave: perhaps or just fix the bug that caused it to fail in this case cloning relative submodule urls in a non-bare repo