I work on several projects and sometimes they share a common base. How do you work with version control?

Here’s an example:

I’ve got a boilerplate WordPress plugin that I reuse. On each new WordPress plugin project I create code I want to add to my boilerplate plugin. Currently I’m manually extracting libraries & fixes and add them to my boilerplate.

Is there a better way I could do this? So when I create a new library or fix a specific bug, can I somehow say ‘this should also be added to my boilerplate repository’?

Update:

I’ve read the link, answers and comments. It gave me insight in if it’s a good idea to make a ‘mudball’ library. Reading all of it I think sometimes a common library can make sense. In my example, a ‘common base’, it makes sense to me.

But i still have my question: How do i do it? Say i have this:

• boilerplate plugin
• plugin 1
• plugin 2
• plugin 3

I decide to work on plugin 1 and write some code that would be usefull for the boilerplate plugin. Or I fix a bug in plugin 3, that also needs to be fixed in the boilerplate.

Is there a way in version control (I use netbeans / bitbucket ) to say: Commit this code to plugin 1 and also add this part to the boilerplate plugin?