diff --git a/src/app/rpmostree-compose-builtin-tree.c b/src/app/rpmostree-compose-builtin-tree.c
index 823a59da98..28b693aa93 100644
--- a/src/app/rpmostree-compose-builtin-tree.c
+++ b/src/app/rpmostree-compose-builtin-tree.c
@@ -1090,6 +1090,37 @@ impl_install_tree (RpmOstreeTreeComposeContext *self,
   return TRUE;
 }
 
+static gboolean
+create_rpmdb_pkglist_variant (int              rootfs_dfd,
+                              GVariant       **out_variant,
+                              GCancellable    *cancellable,
+                              GError         **error)
+{
+  g_autoptr(GPtrArray) pkglist = NULL;
+  g_autoptr(RpmOstreeRefSack) refsack = NULL;
+  if (!rpmostree_get_pkglist_for_root (rootfs_dfd, ".", &refsack,
+                                       &pkglist, cancellable, error))
+    return FALSE;
+
+  GVariantBuilder pkglist_v_builder;
+  g_variant_builder_init (&pkglist_v_builder, (GVariantType*)"a(stsss)");
+
+  const guint n = pkglist->len;
+  for (guint i = 0; i < n; i++)
+    {
+      DnfPackage *pkg = pkglist->pdata[i];
+      g_variant_builder_add (&pkglist_v_builder, "(stsss)",
+                             dnf_package_get_name (pkg),
+                             dnf_package_get_epoch (pkg),
+                             dnf_package_get_version (pkg),
+                             dnf_package_get_release (pkg),
+                             dnf_package_get_arch (pkg));
+    }
+
+  *out_variant = g_variant_builder_end (&pkglist_v_builder);
+  return TRUE;
+}
+
 static gboolean
 impl_commit_tree (RpmOstreeTreeComposeContext *self,
                   GCancellable    *cancellable,
@@ -1109,6 +1140,15 @@ impl_commit_tree (RpmOstreeTreeComposeContext *self,
     GLNX_HASH_TABLE_FOREACH_KV (self->metadata, const char*, strkey, GVariant*, v)
       g_variant_builder_add (metadata_builder, "{sv}", strkey, v);
 
+    /* include list of packages in rpmdb; this is used client-side for easily previewing
+     * pending updates. once we only support unified core composes, this can easily be much
+     * more readily injected during assembly */
+    g_autoptr(GVariant) rpmdb_v = NULL;
+    if (!create_rpmdb_pkglist_variant (self->rootfs_dfd, &rpmdb_v, cancellable, error))
+      return FALSE;
+    g_variant_builder_add (metadata_builder, "{sv}", "rpmostree.rpmdb.pkglist",
+                           g_steal_pointer (&rpmdb_v));
+
     metadata = g_variant_ref_sink (g_variant_builder_end (metadata_builder));
     /* Canonicalize to big endian, like OSTree does. Without this, any numbers
      * we place in the metadata will be unreadable since clients won't know
diff --git a/tests/compose-tests/libbasic-test.sh b/tests/compose-tests/libbasic-test.sh
index 61d3250361..aae606dfda 100644
--- a/tests/compose-tests/libbasic-test.sh
+++ b/tests/compose-tests/libbasic-test.sh
@@ -39,4 +39,9 @@ assert_not_file_has_content ls.txt '__db' 'lock'
 ostree --repo=${repobuild} ls -R ${treeref} /usr/etc/selinux > ls.txt
 assert_not_file_has_content ls.txt 'LOCK'
 echo "ok no leftover files"
+
+ostree --repo=${repobuild} show ${treeref} \
+  --print-metadata-key rpmostree.rpmdb.pkglist > pkglist.txt
+assert_file_has_content pkglist.txt 'systemd'
+echo "ok pkglist"
 }