[chef] Best practices for modifying standard cookbooks

["Leo Dirac (SR)" < >]

I'm getting ready to update to the new version of the application cookbook, and I'm seeking advice for carrying forwards a custom modification I made.

My issue comes from the application cookbook always doing a "shallow clone" of a git repo (source), which on my systems sometimes causes a failure to deploy.  Last time I fixed this by just changing that line of code from "true" to "false" in my local cookbook.  It's expedient, but doesn't seem like a best practice, and forces me to re-do this kind of change every time I upgrade.

How do others manage customizations to shared cookbooks?

Thanks!