diff --git a/config.json b/config.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..fc3e2ce8c6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/config.json
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+{
+    "outputs_path": "outputs",
+    "shard_level": 3,
+    "shard_fill": "z"
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/scripts/shard_repo.py b/scripts/shard_repo.py
index 1aeb11ac49..489f333e26 100644
--- a/scripts/shard_repo.py
+++ b/scripts/shard_repo.py
@@ -5,19 +5,37 @@
 
 import os
 import glob
+import json
 import subprocess
+import sys
 import tqdm
 
 
-outputs = glob.glob("outputs/*.json")
+try:
+    with open("config.json") as f:
+        config = json.load(f)
+except Exception:
+    print("no config.json found, using defaults", file=sys.stderr)
+    config = {
+        "outputs_path": "outputs",
+        "shard_level": 3,
+        "shard_fill": "z"
+    }
+
+outputs_path = config["outputs_path"]
+shard_level = config["shard_level"]
+shard_fill = config["shard_fill"]
+
+
+outputs = glob.glob(f"{outputs_path}/*.json")
 
 for orig_out in tqdm.tqdm(outputs):
     out = os.path.basename(orig_out)
     chars = [c for c in out if c.isalnum()]
-    while len(chars) < 3:
-        chars.append("z")
+    while len(chars) < shard_level:
+        chars.append(shard_fill)
 
-    final_pth = os.path.join("outputs", chars[0], chars[1], chars[2])
+    final_pth = os.path.join(outputs_path, *chars[:shard_level])
     os.makedirs(final_pth, exist_ok=True)
     final_out = os.path.join(final_pth, out)