diff --git a/ci/create-revisions-file.sh b/ci/create-revisions-file.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..4bd2f03e5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ci/create-revisions-file.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+# Look for pull-request-title and pull-request-body files in the current directory
+# these files should be generated by the environment in which we find ourselves: for now either github actions/workflows or jenkins pipelines
+
+# expected inputs via environment variables
+# REPOS - space separated names of repositories to include, if a forward slash (/) included then the format is <organization>/<repository> otherwise the default org is cfengine
+
+# helper functions
+function rev_env_name()
+{
+  local repo=$1
+  echo "${repo}_rev" | tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]' | tr '/-' '_'
+}
+
+# process revisions
+# replace numeric revisions by pull/REVISION/merge
+
+# blank out revisions file
+echo > revisions
+
+# process pull-request-body file added by execution environment like Jenkinsfile or github workflow
+if [ -f pull-request-body ]; then
+  awk 'BEGIN { RS="https://" } {print $0}' pull-request-body | while IFS= read -r line
+  do
+    org_repo_rev=$(echo "$line" | awk 'match($0,/github.com\/([a-zA-Z-]*)\/([a-zA-Z-]*)\/pull\/([0-9]*)/,a) {print a[1] ":" a[2] ":" a[3]}')
+    _org=$(echo "$org_repo_rev" | cut -d: -f1)
+    _repo=$(echo "$org_repo_rev" | cut -d: -f2)
+    _rev=$(echo "$org_repo_rev" | cut -d: -f3)
+    if [ -n "$_repo" ]; then
+      varname=$(rev_env_name "$_repo")
+      declare "$varname"="$_rev"
+    fi
+  done
+fi
+
+for reponame in $REPOS; do
+  if [ "$(expr "$reponame" : ".*/.*")" = 0 ]; then
+    org=cfengine
+    repo="$reponame"
+  else
+    org="$(echo "$reponame" | cut -d/ -f1)"
+    repo="$(echo "$reponame" | cut -d/ -f2)"
+  fi
+  varname="$(rev_env_name "$repo")"
+
+  # if <repo>_REV is empty the set a default from:
+  # PR_BASE - from jenkins ${pullRequest.base}
+  # BRANCH_NAME - from jenkins, only usable for non-pull requests
+  if [ -z "${!varname}" ]; then
+    if [ "$varname" = "NT_DOCS_REV" ]; then
+      declare "$varname"="main"
+    else
+      if [ -n "$PR_BASE" ]; then
+        declare "$varname"="$PR_BASE"
+      else
+        declare "$varname"="$BRANCH_NAME" # master, 3.24.x, etc
+      fi
+    fi
+  fi
+
+  declare "$varname"="$(echo "${!varname}"|sed -r 's|^([0-9]+)$|pull/\1/merge|')"
+  # do nothing if empty, remove tag: if found, add origin/ otherwise
+  declare "$varname"="$(echo "${!varname}"|awk 'BEGIN {FS= ":"} /^$/ {next} /^tag:.*/ {print $2} !/^tag:/ {print "origin/"$1}')"
+
+  # remove origin/ (if any) and add refs/ if necessary
+  declare "$varname"="${!varname##origin/}"
+  if [ -n "${!varname}" ] && [ "$(expr "${!varname}" : "pull/")" != 0 ]; then
+    declare "$varname"="refs/${!varname}"
+  fi
+  echo "$repo git@github.com:${org}/${repo} ${!varname}" >> revisions
+done