diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 9720d8872..ff58bf374 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -2,6 +2,5 @@ language: node_js
 node_js:
     - 6   # node v6, to match jenkins
 install:
+    - scripts/fetch-develop.deps.sh
     - npm install
-    - (cd node_modules/matrix-js-sdk && npm install)
-    - (cd node_modules/matrix-react-sdk && npm install)
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 55463a376..341078736 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -58,27 +58,35 @@ to build.
 1. Install or update `node.js` so that your `npm` is at least at version `2.0.0`
 1. Clone the repo: `git clone https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web.git`
 1. Switch to the riot-web directory: `cd riot-web`
-1. Install the prerequisites: `npm install`
-1. If you are using the `develop` branch of vector-web, you will probably need
-   to rebuild some of the dependencies, due to
-   https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/3055:
-
+1. If you're using the `develop` branch, install the develop versions of the
+   dependencies, as the released ones will be too old:
    ```
-   (cd node_modules/matrix-js-sdk && npm install)
-   (cd node_modules/matrix-react-sdk && npm install)
+   scripts/fetch-develop-deps.sh
    ```
    Whenever you git pull on riot-web you will also probably need to force an update
-   to these dependencies - the easiest way is probably:
+   to these dependencies - the simplest way is to re-run the script, but you can also
+   manually update and reuild them:
    ```
-   rm -rf node_modules/matrjx-{js,react}-sdk && npm i
-   (cd node_modules/matrix-js-sdk && npm install)
-   (cd node_modules/matrix-react-sdk && npm install)
+   cd matrix-js-sdk
+   git pull
+   npm install # re-run to pull in any new dependencies
+   # Depending on your version of npm, npm run build may happen as part of
+   # the npm install above (https://docs.npmjs.com/misc/scripts#prepublish-and-prepare)
+   # If in doubt, run it anyway:
+   npm run build
+   cd ../matrix-react-sdk
+   git pull
+   npm install
+   npm run build
    ```
    However, we recommend setting up a proper development environment (see "Setting
    up a development environment" below) if you want to run your own copy of the
    `develop` branch, as it makes it much easier to keep these dependencies
    up-to-date.  Or just use https://riot.im/develop - the continuous integration
    release of the develop branch.
+   (Note that we don't reference the develop versions in git directly due to
+   https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/3055)
+1. Install the prerequisites: `npm install`
 1. Configure the app by copying `config.sample.json` to `config.json` and
    modifying it (see below for details)
 1. `npm run dist` to build a tarball to deploy. Untaring this file will give
diff --git a/release.sh b/release.sh
index c24545605..8ae307f7e 100755
--- a/release.sh
+++ b/release.sh
@@ -9,6 +9,22 @@ set -e
 
 cd `dirname $0`
 
+for i in matrix-js-sdk matrix-react-sdk
+do
+    depver=`cat package.json | jq -r .dependencies.\"$i\"`
+    latestver=`npm show $i version`
+    if [ "$depver" != "$latestver" ]
+    then
+        echo "The latest version of $i is $latestver but package.json depends on $depver"
+        echo -n "Type 'Yes' to continue anyway: "
+        read resp
+        if [ "$resp" != "Yes" ]
+        then
+            echo "OK, never mind."
+            exit 1
+        fi
+    fi
+done
 
 # bump Electron's package.json first
 release="${1#v}"
diff --git a/scripts/fetch-develop.deps.sh b/scripts/fetch-develop.deps.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..8048d4bc5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/fetch-develop.deps.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+# Fetches the js-sdk and matrix-react-sdk dependencies for development
+# or testing purposes
+# If there exists a branch of that dependency with the same name as
+# the branch the current checkout is on, use that branch. Otherwise,
+# use develop.
+
+# Look in the many different CI env vars for which branch we're
+# building
+if [[ "$TRAVIS" == true ]]; then
+    curbranch="${TRAVIS_PULL_REQUEST_BRANCH:-$TRAVIS_BRANCH}"
+else
+    # ghprbSourceBranch for jenkins github pull request builder
+    # GIT_BRANCH for other jenkins builds
+    curbranch="${ghprbSourceBranch:-$GIT_BRANCH}"
+    # Otherwise look at the actual branch we're on
+    if [ -z "$curbranch" ]
+    then
+        curbranch=`git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD`
+    fi
+fi
+
+echo "Determined branch to be $curbranch"
+
+function dodep() {
+    org=$1
+    repo=$2
+    rm -rf $repo || true
+    git clone https://github.com/$org/$repo.git $repo
+    pushd $repo
+    git checkout $curbranch || git checkout develop
+    echo "$repo set to branch "`git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD`
+    popd
+}
+
+dodep matrix-org matrix-js-sdk
+dodep matrix-org matrix-react-sdk
+
+mkdir -p node_modules
+cd node_modules
+
+ln -s ../matrix-js-sdk ./
+pushd matrix-js-sdk
+npm install
+popd
+
+ln -s ../matrix-react-sdk ./
+pushd matrix-react-sdk
+mkdir -p node_modules
+cd node_modules
+ln -s ../../matrix-js-sdk matrix-js-sdk
+cd ..
+npm install
+popd
+# Link the reskindex binary in place: if we used npm link,
+# npm would do this for us, but we don't because we'd have
+# to define the npm prefix somewhere so it could put the
+# intermediate symlinks there. Instead, we do it ourselves.
+mkdir -p .bin
+ln -s ../matrix-react-sdk/scripts/reskindex.js .bin/reskindex
diff --git a/scripts/jenkins.sh b/scripts/jenkins.sh
index 312eea454..17f86fe12 100755
--- a/scripts/jenkins.sh
+++ b/scripts/jenkins.sh
@@ -8,10 +8,13 @@ nvm use 6
 
 set -x
 
+# check out corresponding branches of dependencies
+`dirname $0`/fetch-develop.deps.sh
+
 npm install
 
 # apparently npm 3.10.3 on node 6.4.0 doesn't upgrade #develop target with npm install unless explicitly asked.
-npm install matrix-react-sdk matrix-js-sdk olm
+npm install olm
 
 # install olm. A naive 'npm i ./olm/olm-*.tgz' fails because it uses the url
 # from our package.json (or even matrix-js-sdk's) in preference.
@@ -23,11 +26,6 @@ npm install matrix-react-sdk matrix-js-sdk olm
 #rm -r node_modules/olm
 #cp -r olm/package node_modules/olm
 
-
-# we may be using dev branches of js-sdk and react-sdk, in which case we need to build them
-(cd node_modules/matrix-js-sdk && npm install)
-(cd node_modules/matrix-react-sdk && npm install)
-
 # run the mocha tests
 npm run test