diff --git a/Containerfile b/Containerfile
index dea9de3..927c54b 100644
--- a/Containerfile
+++ b/Containerfile
@@ -18,32 +18,6 @@ RUN dnf install -y dnf-plugins-core \
 
 COPY --from=builder /build/image-builder /usr/bin/
 
-# install repo data from osbuild-composer in an ugly way
-# XXX: find a better way
-RUN <<EOR
- mkdir -p /usr/share/osbuild-composer/repositories
- cd /usr/share/osbuild-composer/repositories
- # XXX: find a better way to organize the upstream supported repos
- # we cannot just checkout the osbuild-composer repo here as it contains a bunch
- # of "*-no-aux-key.json" files too, so a naive "cp *.json" will not work.
- # Ideally we split the supported repos out of osbuild-composer into
- # either "images" (as it generates the code for supported distro it could
- # be the place that also defines what is supported) or into its own repo.
- # Bonus points if we could make them go:embedable :)
- for fname in centos-stream-9 centos-stream-10 \
-              fedora-40 fedora-41 \
-              rhel-8 rhel-8.1 rhel-8.2 rhel-8.3 rhel-8.4 rhel-8.5 rhel-8.6 \
-	      rhel-8.7 rhel-8.8 rhel-8.9 \
-	      rhel-9.0 rhel-9.1 rhel-9.2 rhel-9.3 rhel-9.4 rhel-9.5 rhel-9.6 \
-	      rhel-10.0; do
-   # XXX: if only we had 'go:embed'able repos :(
-   wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/osbuild/osbuild-composer/refs/heads/main/repositories/${fname}.json
- done
- # XXX: find an even better way here, those are symlinks in the upstream repo
- cp -a centos-stream-9.json centos-9.json
- cp -a centos-stream-10.json centos-10.json
-EOR
-
 COPY entrypoint.sh /entrypoint.sh
 ENTRYPOINT ["/entrypoint.sh"]
 VOLUME /output
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index f1d9a54..cd91d81 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -31,10 +31,8 @@ we plan to provide rpm packages as well.
 
 Make sure to have the required `osbuild` RPMs installed:
 ```console
-$ sudo dnf install osbuild osbuild-depsolve-dnf osbuild-composer
+$ sudo dnf install osbuild osbuild-depsolve-dnf
 ```
-(`osbuild-composer` is only needed to get the repository definitions
-and this dependency will go away soon).
 
 ## Examples
 
@@ -120,6 +118,13 @@ Q: Does this require a backend.
 A: The osbuild binary is used to actually build the images but beyond that
    no setup is required, i.e. no daemons like osbuild-composer.
 
+Q: Can I have custom repository files?
+A: Sure! The repostories are encoded in json in "<distro>-<vesion>.json",
+   files, e.g. "fedora-41.json". See these [examples](https://github.com/osbuild/images/tree/main/data/repositories). Use the "--datadir" switch and
+   place them under "repositories/name-version.json", e.g. for:
+   "--datadir ~/my-project --distro foo-1" a json file must be put under 
+   "~/my-project/repositories/foo-1.json.
+
 ## Project
 
  * **Website**: <https://www.osbuild.org>
diff --git a/cmd/image-builder/repos.go b/cmd/image-builder/repos.go
index 8964753..bc238dc 100644
--- a/cmd/image-builder/repos.go
+++ b/cmd/image-builder/repos.go
@@ -1,22 +1,22 @@
 package main
 
 import (
+	"io/fs"
+	"os"
+	"path/filepath"
+
+	"github.com/osbuild/images/data/repositories"
 	"github.com/osbuild/images/pkg/reporegistry"
 )
 
-// XXX: copied from "composer", should be exported there so
-// that we keep this in sync
-// XXX2: means we need to depend on osbuild-composer-common or a new rpm
-// that provides the relevant packages *or* we use go:embed (cf images#1038)
-//
 // defaultDataDirs contains the default search paths to look for repository
 // data. Note that the repositories are under a repositories/ sub-directory
 // and contain a bunch of json files of the form "$distro_$version".json
 // (but that is an implementation detail that the "images" library takes
 // care of).
 var defaultDataDirs = []string{
-	"/etc/osbuild-composer",
-	"/usr/share/osbuild-composer",
+	"/etc/image-builder",
+	"/usr/share/image-builder",
 }
 
 var newRepoRegistry = func(dataDir string) (*reporegistry.RepoRegistry, error) {
@@ -27,5 +27,17 @@ var newRepoRegistry = func(dataDir string) (*reporegistry.RepoRegistry, error) {
 		dataDirs = defaultDataDirs
 	}
 
-	return reporegistry.New(dataDirs)
+	// XXX: think about sharing this with reporegistry?
+	var fses []fs.FS
+	for _, d := range dataDirs {
+		fses = append(fses, os.DirFS(filepath.Join(d, "repositories")))
+	}
+	fses = append(fses, repos.FS)
+
+	// XXX: should we support disabling the build-ins somehow?
+	conf, err := reporegistry.LoadAllRepositoriesFromFS(fses)
+	if err != nil {
+		return nil, err
+	}
+	return reporegistry.NewFromDistrosRepoConfigs(conf), nil
 }
diff --git a/test/containerbuild.py b/test/conftest.py
similarity index 100%
rename from test/containerbuild.py
rename to test/conftest.py