diff --git a/promenade/__init__.py b/promenade/__init__.py
index e69de29b..7faf876b 100644
--- a/promenade/__init__.py
+++ b/promenade/__init__.py
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+import pylibyaml  # noqa: F401  # patch pyyaml to use libyaml bindings
diff --git a/requirements-direct.txt b/requirements-direct.txt
index a7545510..05070252 100644
--- a/requirements-direct.txt
+++ b/requirements-direct.txt
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ kubernetes==3.0.0
 oslo.context==2.21.0
 oslo.policy==1.40.1
 pastedeploy==1.5.2
+pylibyaml~=0.1
 pyyaml~=5.1
 requests==2.22.0
 uwsgi==2.0.19.1
diff --git a/requirements-frozen.txt b/requirements-frozen.txt
index 636dc66f..aded9de2 100644
--- a/requirements-frozen.txt
+++ b/requirements-frozen.txt
@@ -77,6 +77,7 @@ pycodestyle==2.0.0
 pycparser==2.20
 pyflakes==1.2.3
 pyinotify==0.9.6
+pylibyaml==0.1.0
 pyparsing==2.4.7
 pyperclip==1.8.0
 python-barbicanclient==4.7.0
diff --git a/tests/__init__.py b/tests/__init__.py
index e69de29b..7faf876b 100644
--- a/tests/__init__.py
+++ b/tests/__init__.py
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+import pylibyaml  # noqa: F401  # patch pyyaml to use libyaml bindings