SVN Plugin

The SVN plugin adds Subversion repository support: it checks out (or updates) SVN working copies before ingestion, and it lists and switches branches so Branch Switching works on SVN repos.

The plugin has no args of its own. Credentials and revision pinning live on each repos[] entry.

Requirements

The svn CLI must be installed as a system package. It cannot be installed via pip/uv.

Ubuntu/Debian:  sudo apt-get install subversion
Fedora/RHEL:    sudo dnf install subversion
macOS:          brew install subversion
Windows:        winget install TortoiseSVN.TortoiseSVN  (or SlikSVN / VisualSVN)

If svn is missing at runtime, Codumentor raises an error with those installation instructions.

Configuration

Plugin registration

plugins:
  - module: codumentor.plugins.svn
    class: SvnPlugin

Repository entries

Add SVN repos to the repos list with scm: svn:

repos:
  - scm: svn
    url: https://svn.example.com/repos/myproject
    name: myproject

  # With authentication (${ENV_VAR} expansion is supported)
  - scm: svn
    url: https://svn.example.com/repos/internal
    name: internal
    options:
      username: ${SVN_USER}
      password: ${SVN_PASS}

  # Pinned to a specific revision
  - scm: svn
    url: https://svn.example.com/repos/legacy
    name: legacy
    commit: "4200"

Repository options

Option	Description
username	SVN username. Supports ${ENV_VAR} expansion.
password	SVN password. Supports ${ENV_VAR} expansion.
revision	Revision to check out (alternative to the top-level commit field).

commit (top-level repo field) or options.revision both pin the working copy to a specific revision.

What the plugin does

Checkout/update — Before ingestion, the plugin runs svn checkout for new working copies or svn update for existing ones. A 300-second timeout applies.

Branch listing — Discovers trunk/Trunk and entries under branches//Branches/ (casing as used in the repo). Names are relative to the project prefix (e.g. Trunk, Branches/feature-x).

Branch switching — Switches the working copy to the selected branch. If the working copy is a subdirectory of a branch (e.g. …/Trunk/DbStructure), the same subdirectory is kept on the new branch.

Branch diff — Summarizes added, modified, and deleted files between two refs (used for branch-specific search overlays).

Multi-project repos — Supports layouts where several projects share one repository root (e.g. https://svn.example.com/front/WS/FrontWS1.3.1/trunk). The plugin derives the project prefix automatically and exposes short branch names.

Credentials

When options.username / options.password are set, they are passed to every SVN network command and not written to ~/.subversion/auth/ (--no-auth-cache). Keep those values in config (or env vars) so later checkout, update, list, and switch still authenticate.

When credentials are omitted, SVN runs non-interactively and uses whatever is already cached under ~/.subversion/auth/.

The password is never put on the svn command line. It is fed to each
svn process on stdin via --password-from-stdin, so it is not readable in
the host process table (ps) while a checkout, update, branch list, diff or
switch is running, and it never reaches disk. This applies to every SVN call
the product makes — the ingestion checkout/update, branch switching (inside the
sandbox as well), the admin repository preflight probe, and the push webhook's
working-copy update.

--password-from-stdin requires Subversion 1.10 or newer (released 2018).
Codumentor detects the installed client's version once at startup of the first
authenticated call. On an older client it falls back to --password, which
is visible in ps, and logs a single warning naming the risk:

The installed Subversion client is older than 1.10 and has no
--password-from-stdin, so SVN passwords must be passed on the command line,
where any local user can read them with 'ps'. Upgrade Subversion to 1.10 or
newer.

If you see that warning on a host where local users are not fully trusted,
upgrade subversion rather than ignoring it.

Troubleshooting

The 'svn' command-line tool is not installed — Install subversion via your OS package manager (see Requirements above).

SVN command failed — Check the error for authentication or network issues. Verify the url is reachable and credentials are still present in config (they are not cached after a successful checkout).

Branch list shows only trunk / Trunk — Listing branches/ may have failed (network, auth, or a non-standard layout). Check logs for list_branches failed warnings.