Keeping Makefile.am in sync with Git repository

[Jack Bates]

I started work on a script to help keep our Makefile.am-s up-to-date 
with our Git repository:
http://nottheoilrig.com/autotidy/201409190/autotidy

Does something similar already exist?
Everyone on our project is comfortable adding/removing files from Git 
but the Makefile.am-s sometimes get overlooked or new project members 
are unfamiliar with Automake.
Now if a file is removed from the repository but not from a Makefile.am 
the script rewrites the Makefile.am, dropping the file from it as well.
If a file is added to the repository the script also adds it to the 
appropriate Makefile.am's EXTRA_DIST variable. This isn't always the 
correct edit: Sometimes it should get added to a different primary or 
sometimes the file isn't to be distributed. The script takes a 
configurable list of files which aren't distributed. On one hand we now 
have another list of files to keep up-to-date, just shifting the 
problem, but we're more commonly adding/removing files that are 
distributed, so the list of files which aren't changes less frequently 
than the Makefile.am-s. Also the script hopefully gets the developer's 
attention whereupon she can intervene with a better edit, whereas 
without it, forgetting to distribute a new file can sometimes go 
unnoticed for a long time.