diff --git a/src/cmd-buildextend-hashlist-experimental b/src/cmd-buildextend-hashlist-experimental
index 9ae7c753af..5c3fb43ae9 100755
--- a/src/cmd-buildextend-hashlist-experimental
+++ b/src/cmd-buildextend-hashlist-experimental
@@ -91,10 +91,12 @@ class HashListV1(dict):
             'ostree', 'checkout',
             '--repo=tmp/repo', '-U',
             self._metadata['ostree-commit'], checkout])
-        # Force all dirs to be owner writable so that we can delete the
-        # checkout at the end. XXX: Lower into a new `ostree checkout` flag.
+        #  Make all dirs in 'tmp' checkout readable.
+        #  'find' can't recurse into tmp dir files, we add 'x' so that it can recurse into it.
+        #  With '+', 'find' accumulates paths and runs 'chmod' once (or batched by the arg limit).
+        #  To 'chmod' the dir before it tries to recurse into it, we use ';'.
         subprocess.check_call(['find', checkout, '-type', 'd', '-exec',
-                               'chmod', 'u+w', '{}', '+'])
+                               'chmod', 'u+rwx', '{}', ';'])
         self.hash_from_path(checkout)
 
         # Extract initramfs contents