diff --git a/data/tools/wesnoth/wmltools3.py b/data/tools/wesnoth/wmltools3.py
index 2f9a8e81f7e7..b0f1bad39e6c 100644
--- a/data/tools/wesnoth/wmltools3.py
+++ b/data/tools/wesnoth/wmltools3.py
@@ -928,4 +928,7 @@ def resolve_unit_image(namespace, subdir, resource):
 # And this is for code that does syntax transformation
 baseindent = "    "
 
+# a constant to detect version control directories
+vcdir = ".git"
+
 # wmltools.py ends here