diff --git a/.gitmodules b/.gitmodules
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..176b9f14a17bd5fac5e51b984d3e5d6d98eaf407
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitmodules
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+# SPDX-FileCopyrightInfo: Copyright © DuMux Project contributors, see AUTHORS.md in root folder
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: CC0-1.0
+
+[submodule "deps/gridformat"]
+	path = deps/gridformat
+	url = https://github.com/dglaeser/gridformat.git
diff --git a/deps/gridformat b/deps/gridformat
new file mode 160000
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..fa73387ccbd562034c99fdcf3238ba6a4195d9cf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/deps/gridformat
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Subproject commit fa73387ccbd562034c99fdcf3238ba6a4195d9cf