diff --git a/setup.cfg b/setup.cfg
deleted file mode 100644
index 9993f5a13..000000000
--- a/setup.cfg
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,59 +0,0 @@
-[metadata]
-name = hedtools
-author = VisLab (Kay Robbins), Ian Callanan, Monique Dennisen, Jeremy Cockfield, Alexander Jones, Owen Winterberg
-author_email = Kay.Robbins@utsa.edu
-description = HED validation, summary, and analysis tools.
-long_description = file: README.md
-long_description_content_type = text/markdown
-url = https://github.com/hed-standard/hed-python/
-# project_urls =
-bug tracker = https://github.com/hed-standard/hed-python/issues
-classifiers =
-    Programming Language :: Python :: 3
-    License :: OSI Approved :: MIT License
-    Operating System :: OS Independent
-
-
-
-[options]
-package_dir =
-    = .
-packages = find_namespace:
-python_requires = >=3.7
-install_requires =
-    defusedxml
-    et-xmlfile
-    inflect
-    jdcal
-    jsonschema
-    numpy
-    openpyxl
-    pandas
-    portalocker
-    python-dateutil
-    pytz
-    rdflib
-    semantic-version
-    six
-
-
-[options.packages.find]
-include = hed*
-
-[options.package_data]
-# include the schemas in the installed package
-hed = schema/schema_data/*.xml
-
-[options.entry_points]
-console_scripts =
-    run_remodel=hed.tools.remodeling.cli.run_remodel:main
-    run_remodel_backup=hed.tools.remodeling.cli.run_remodel_backup:main
-    run_remodel_restore=hed.tools.remodeling.cli.run_remodel_restore:main
-
-[versioneer]
-VCS = git
-style = pep440
-versionfile_source = hed/_version.py
-versionfile_build = hed/_version.py
-tag_prefix =
-parentdir_prefix = hedtools-
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..2341aa921
--- /dev/null
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+# dummy setup file for versioneer
+
+import versioneer
+from setuptools import setup
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    setup(version=versioneer.get_version(),
+          cmdclass=versioneer.get_cmdclass())
\ No newline at end of file