The Merge Fairy is a Python script that automates the process of merging changes from one Subversion branch to another, based on an XML configuration file that describes branches and their dependencies. For example, you might want bug fixes from the release branch to be automatically merged to the trunk branch.

In the event of a merge conflict or a build failure after merging, the Merge Fairy sends email requesting help from a human to make a manual merge, resuming automated merging once this done.

I originally wrote the Merge Fairy at Jobster, where it has been used for the past few years. We also use it at Mergelab. The Merge Fairy is now being released under an open source MIT license for general use.

If you are already familiar with how it works, you can now download mergefairy.zip. I will be reposting full documentation shortly; during my server migration, I unfortunately lost the documentation page I had written. (I realize this sounds like the internet equivalent of “the dog ate my homework”, but it’s true.)

Update:
The Merge Fairy and associated documentation is now hosted as Google Code project at http://code.google.com/p/svn-merge-fairy/