diff --git a/roles/git/make_checkout_seed/files/make-git-checkout-seed.sh.staging b/roles/git/make_checkout_seed/files/make-git-checkout-seed.sh.staging
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..6ed32da9a3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/roles/git/make_checkout_seed/files/make-git-checkout-seed.sh.staging
@@ -0,0 +1,73 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+# Puppet notes -- script is file
+# mkdir /srv/git_seed
+# cron job to invoke file daily
+# Need to setup OUTPUT_DIR to be served by apache
+
+# Where the git repos live.  These are bare repos
+ORIGIN_DIR=/srv/git/repositories
+
+# Where we'll create the repos to tar up
+WORK_DIR=/srv/git_seed
+
+# Subdirectory makes cleanup easier
+SEED_DIR=$WORK_DIR/git-checkout
+
+# subdirectory to collect rpm speciles
+SPEC_DIR=$WORK_DIR/rpm-specs
+
+# Where to store the seed tarball for download
+OUTPUT_DIR=/srv/cache/lookaside/
+
+# Instead of starting fresh each time, we'll try to use git pull to keep things synced
+#rm -rf $WORK_DIR/*
+mkdir -p $SEED_DIR
+mkdir -p $SPEC_DIR
+
+# Give people an indication of when this checkout was last synced
+TIMESTAMP=`date --rfc-3339=seconds`
+DATE=`date +'%Y%m%d'`
+echo "$TIMESTAMP" > $SEED_DIR/TIMESTAMP
+
+
+for repo in $ORIGIN_DIR/*.git ; do
+  bname=$(basename $repo .git)
+  working_tree=$SEED_DIR/$bname
+# uncomment to skip processing dead.package repos
+#  if [ -e $working_tree/dead.package ]; then
+#  continue
+#  fi
+  if [ -d $working_tree ] ; then
+    pushd $working_tree &> /dev/null
+    sed -i "s@url = .*@url = $repo@" $working_tree/.git/config
+    git pull --all &> /dev/null
+    sed -i "s@url = .*@url = git://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/$bname@" $working_tree/.git/config
+    popd &>/dev/null
+    if [ -e $working_tree/dead.package ]; then
+      rm -f $working_tree/$bname.spec
+      rm -f $SPEC_DIR/$bname.spec
+    elif [ -e $working_tree/$bname.spec ]; then
+      cp $working_tree/$bname.spec $SPEC_DIR/
+    fi
+  else
+    pushd $SEED_DIR &>/dev/null
+    git clone $repo &> /dev/null
+    popd &>/dev/null
+    sed -i "s@url = .*@url = git://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/$bname@" $working_tree/.git/config
+    if [ -e $working_tree/dead.package ]; then
+      rm -f $working_tree/$bname.spec
+      rm -f $SPEC_DIR/$bname.spec
+    elif [ -e $working_tree/$bname.spec ]; then
+      cp $working_tree/$bname.spec $SPEC_DIR/
+    fi
+  fi
+done
+
+tar -cf - -C$WORK_DIR $(basename $SEED_DIR)|xz -2 > $OUTPUT_DIR/.git-seed-$DATE.tar.xz
+tar -cf - -C$WORK_DIR $(basename $SPEC_DIR)|xz -2 > $OUTPUT_DIR/.rpm-specs-$DATE.tar.xz
+rm $OUTPUT_DIR/git-seed*tar.xz
+rm $OUTPUT_DIR/rpm-specs*tar.xz
+mv $OUTPUT_DIR/.git-seed-$DATE.tar.xz $OUTPUT_DIR/git-seed-$DATE.tar.xz
+mv $OUTPUT_DIR/.rpm-specs-$DATE.tar.xz $OUTPUT_DIR/rpm-specs-$DATE.tar.xz
+ln -s git-seed-$DATE.tar.xz $OUTPUT_DIR/git-seed-latest.tar.xz
+ln -s rpm-specs-$DATE.tar.xz $OUTPUT_DIR/rpm-specs-latest.tar.xz
diff --git a/roles/git/make_checkout_seed/tasks/main.yml b/roles/git/make_checkout_seed/tasks/main.yml
index 4bc4609d95..461bb56f52 100644
--- a/roles/git/make_checkout_seed/tasks/main.yml
+++ b/roles/git/make_checkout_seed/tasks/main.yml
@@ -4,8 +4,13 @@
 - name: create the destination directory
   file: dest=/srv/git_seed owner=root group=root mode=0755 state=directory
 
-- name: install the script and schedule its execution
+- name: install the staging version of the script and schedule its execution
+  copy: src=make-git-checkout-seed.sh.staging dest=/usr/local/bin/make-git-checkout-seed.sh mode=0755
+  when: env == 'staging'
+
+- name: install the production version of the script and schedule its execution
   copy: src=make-git-checkout-seed.sh dest=/usr/local/bin/make-git-checkout-seed.sh mode=0755
+  when: env != 'staging'
 
 - name: install cron job.
   cron: >