[[!comment format=mdwn
 username="joey"
 subject="""comment 1"""
 date="2015-09-21T19:08:28Z"
 content="""
The assistant merges the synced/git-annex branch whenever it detects (via
inotify) that a change has been made to that git ref. 

I can't reproduce a problem from the information you've given. With
`foo -> bar <- quux`, and assistants running on foo and quux, any file
written to foo more or less immediately syncs to quux, and the git-annex
branch is merged.

Even when I stop the assistant running on foo, and manually run
`git push bar git-annex:synced/git-annex`, quux immediately notices that
bar has received that synced/git-annex, and fetches and merges it into its
own git-annex branch.
"""]]