# Have private submodules but want to ignore them

**URL:** <https://answers.netlify.com/t/have-private-submodules-but-want-to-ignore-them/86596>\
**Category:** Support\
**Tags:** deployment\
**Created:** [February 27, 2023, 10:05pm UTC](https://answers.netlify.com/t/have-private-submodules-but-want-to-ignore-them/86596 "2023-02-27T22:05:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![richt](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/netlify/user_avatar/answers.netlify.com/richt/32/21008_2.png) [@richt](https://answers.netlify.com/u/richt)\
**Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 10:05pm UTC](https://answers.netlify.com/t/have-private-submodules-but-want-to-ignore-them/86596/1 "2023-02-27T22:05:34Z")

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Ok this is an insanely stupid question, but we have repo with private submodules. I tried to understand (I’m a noob) how to get this to work by generating a deploy key at [netlify.com](http://netlify.com) for the site and then going to the deploy section of the github repo in question and pasting it there.

This didn’t seem to work. Do I have to post this deploy key to _all_ the submodules or just to the root module.

Second question is that we do not actually need to open any of those submodules, it there a way just to say do not do a recurse submodule.

Strangely, I must have done something because one of our repos with submodules works just fine and doesn’t appear to every do the recurse. Is this set somewhere in netlify.toml or maybe in the site UI. I can’t find it 🙂

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**Author:** ![gualter](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/netlify/user_avatar/answers.netlify.com/gualter/32/35068_2.png) [@gualter](https://answers.netlify.com/u/gualter)\
**Post date:** [February 28, 2023, 4:24pm UTC](https://answers.netlify.com/t/have-private-submodules-but-want-to-ignore-them/86596/2 "2023-02-28T16:24:07Z")

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hi @richt

welcome to our forums! We don’t look for submodules recursively as seen here:

> **[Repository permissions and linking](https://docs.netlify.com/configure-builds/repo-permissions-linking/#git-submodule-limitations)**
>
> Learn how to give our platform permission to access repository code, how to link a site to a repository, and how to access other repositories at build.

So this limitation works well for you it seems!