diff --git a/data/common.yaml b/data/common.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..d828550f198b3bb75cd05090e670da696ec3661d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/common.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+---
+cowbuilder:
+  content:
+    - '# Members of the root group can run cowbuilder (needed for building Debian pacakges)'
+    - '%root ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/cowbuilder'
+  priority: 50
diff --git a/hiera.yaml b/hiera.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..eb05e58165af6f8abd9774049ac13e5f64fd0968
--- /dev/null
+++ b/hiera.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+---
+version: 5
+defaults:  # Used for any hierarchy level that omits these keys.
+  datadir: data         # This path is relative to hiera.yaml's directory.
+  data_hash: yaml_data  # Use the built-in YAML backend.
+
+hierarchy:
+  - name: "Common data"
+    path: "common.yaml"
+