Multiple .gitmodules files in the root directory?

We have implemented a branching strategy where we have a dev branch that gets built and published to our QA environment, and then a release branch that gets built and published to our stage and eventually our production environments.

dev

release

I have a project that has multiple submodules, and will also get built and published to our QA environment and also built and published to our stage and production environments. It will also have dev and release branches.

dev

release

When we pull this project prior to build, if it's on the dev branch I want all the submodules to also pull from the dev branch, and if it's on the release branch I want all the submodules to then pull from their release branches as well.

dev

dev

release

release

Is there a way to accomplish this with some environment variables to specify which submodule branches to pull, or perhaps a .gitmodule file for both dev and release branches that can be specified on git submodule init?

.gitmodule

dev

release

git submodule init

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