diff --git a/roles/fetch-zuul-cloner/tasks/main.yaml b/roles/fetch-zuul-cloner/tasks/main.yaml
index f7432ed0e..eec70aa02 100644
--- a/roles/fetch-zuul-cloner/tasks/main.yaml
+++ b/roles/fetch-zuul-cloner/tasks/main.yaml
@@ -15,3 +15,11 @@
     path: "{{ destination }}"
     mode: 0755
   become: yes
+
+- name: Make repositories writable so that people can hardlink
+  file:
+    path: "{{ ansible_user_dir }}/src"
+    state: directory
+    recurse: yes
+    mode: ugo+rw
+  become: yes