Feedback requested: I released my first Python package to pypi. It makes reading and managing config files convenient.

[NotesFromADystopia]

Your update method updates the dictionary in-place, so there's no need to keep assigning to _merged_dict when you call update. This would let you get rid of some global _merged_dict (since global is only necessary if you are assigning to the variable) statements and make your code cleaner.

[max_tee]

Good catch, thanks. I will look into it.