diff --git a/projects/gnu.org/readline/fixture.c b/projects/gnu.org/readline/fixture.c
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..5b769d94
--- /dev/null
+++ b/projects/gnu.org/readline/fixture.c
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+#include <stdio.h>
+#include <stdlib.h>
+#include <readline/readline.h>
+int main() {
+  printf("%s\\n", readline("test> "));
+  return 0;
+}
diff --git a/projects/gnu.org/readline/package.yml b/projects/gnu.org/readline/package.yml
index b23a2cd2..cbf21bec 100644
--- a/projects/gnu.org/readline/package.yml
+++ b/projects/gnu.org/readline/package.yml
@@ -4,10 +4,11 @@ distributable:
 
 versions:
   #TODO brew has a couple patches we should apply
+  - 8.2
   - 8.1
 
 dependencies:
-  invisible-island.net/ncurses: 6
+  invisible-island.net/ncurses: ^6
 
 build:
   dependencies:
@@ -18,4 +19,9 @@ build:
     make --jobs {{ hw.concurrency }} install
 
 test:
-  script: true  #FIXME
+  dependencies:
+    tea.xyz/gx/cc: c99
+  script: |
+    cc -lreadline -lncurses fixture.c
+    test "$(echo "Hello, World!" | ./a.out)" = "test> Hello, World!
+    Hello, World!\\n"
diff --git a/projects/invisible-island.net/ncurses/package.yml b/projects/invisible-island.net/ncurses/package.yml
index 6a4ad83b..4cd4cdb8 100644
--- a/projects/invisible-island.net/ncurses/package.yml
+++ b/projects/invisible-island.net/ncurses/package.yml
@@ -21,9 +21,16 @@ build:
     for lib in form menu ncurses panel curses++; do
       for ii in $(find . -name lib${lib}w\*); do
         # hopefully no new w's will be introduced
-        ln -s $ii $(echo $ii | tr -d w)
+        ln -sf $ii $(echo $ii | tr -d w)
       done
     done
+
+    # things often expect either no namespace or namespace
+    cd ../include
+    mv ncursesw/* .
+    rmdir ncursesw
+    ln -sf . ncursesw
+
   env:
     PCDIR: ${{prefix}}/lib/pkgconfig
     ARGS:
diff --git a/projects/python.org/package.yml b/projects/python.org/package.yml
index 6abed368..8d9771d0 100644
--- a/projects/python.org/package.yml
+++ b/projects/python.org/package.yml
@@ -104,9 +104,6 @@ build:
     OPENSSL_INCLUDES: ${{ deps.openssl.org.prefix }}/include
     OPENSSL_LDFLAGS: -L{{ deps.openssl.org.prefix }}/lib
 
-    #FIXME we should get the include path from the ncurses `.pc` files
-    CPATH: ${{ deps.invisible-island.net/ncurses.prefix }}/include/ncursesw:$CPATH
-
   # required for `setup.py` which is used to detect the libs for python’s modules
   diff: |
     diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py