diff --git a/mantle/cmd/kola/testiso.go b/mantle/cmd/kola/testiso.go
index 30bed3c856..01924648bf 100644
--- a/mantle/cmd/kola/testiso.go
+++ b/mantle/cmd/kola/testiso.go
@@ -174,7 +174,7 @@ StandardError=kmsg+console
 ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "journalctl -t coreos-installer-service | /usr/bin/awk '/[Dd]ownload/ {exit 1}'"
 ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "/usr/bin/udevadm settle"
 ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "/usr/bin/mount /dev/disk/by-label/root /mnt"
-ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "/usr/bin/jq -er '.[\"build\"] == \"%s\"' /mnt/.coreos-aleph-version.json"
+ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "/usr/bin/jq -er '.[\"version\"] == \"%s\"' /mnt/.coreos-aleph-version.json"
 ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "/usr/bin/jq -er '.[\"ostree-commit\"] == \"%s\"' /mnt/.coreos-aleph-version.json"
 [Install]
 RequiredBy=coreos-installer.target
diff --git a/src/create_disk.sh b/src/create_disk.sh
index 0924d51877..0d5d6f2d31 100755
--- a/src/create_disk.sh
+++ b/src/create_disk.sh
@@ -386,6 +386,11 @@ test -d "${deploy_root}" || (echo "failed to find $deploy_root"; exit 1)
 #
 # build:         The coreos-assembler build ID; today we support
 #                having the same ostree commit in different image builds.
+# version:       same value as build for now, even though version is
+#                not exactly the same as build ID, this will ease
+#                transition to using osbuild where it's defined
+#                appropriately and build: isn't there:
+#                https://github.com/osbuild/osbuild/pull/1475
 # ref:           The ostree ref used; useful for cross-checking.
 # ostree-commit: Similar to `ref`; one can derive this from looking
 #                at the coreos-assembler builds, but it's very
@@ -395,6 +400,7 @@ test -d "${deploy_root}" || (echo "failed to find $deploy_root"; exit 1)
 cat > $rootfs/.coreos-aleph-version.json << EOF
 {
 	"build": "${buildid}",
+	"version": "${buildid}",
 	"ref": "${ref}",
 	"ostree-commit": "${commit}",
 	"imgid": "${imgid}"