When storing KeePass password databases (*.kdbx files) in Git repositories, merge conflicts can become a significant hassle. Here's how to leverage KeePassXC's CLI capabilities to automatically handle these merges.

First, configure Git to use KeePassXC as the merge driver:

git config merge.keepassxc.name "KeePassXC Merge Driver"
git config merge.keepassxc.driver "keepassxc-cli merge -s %A %B"

Create or update your .gitattributes file in the repository root:

*.kdbx merge=keepassxc

This setup tells Git to use KeePassXC's merge functionality whenever it encounters conflicts in .kdbx files.

The merge driver integrates with Git's native merge system, automatically handling conflicts in your password databases. When Git detects a conflict in a .kdbx file, it will invoke KeePassXC CLI to perform the merge operation.

The flag -s will instruct keepassxc-cli to use the same password for both databases. You will have to enter the password, though. You can of course automate this even further by having a file that provides the password to your database. Straddeling convenience and security is left as an exercise to the reader. ;)

"keepassxc-cli merge" is not a silver bullet. It can lose data. Make sure to check the output to spot any merges that might have gone haywire.

Naturally this would also be the place to advice to "always backup your database before performing merges" – but hey, your database is already stored in a git repo.

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