diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 8ea1f615..13c0afb7 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
-# lsp keep state here
+# clangd working space (see emacs+lsp)
 .cache
-# typical build directories
-build
-ccov
-# for lsp: manual symlink to chosen build directory
+# typical cmake build directory (source-tree-nephew)
+.build*
+# symlink to builddir/compile_commands.json;  should be set manually in dev sandbox
 compile_commands.json
diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index 6f326e13..603f7253 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -6,8 +6,7 @@ project(xo_pyprintjson VERSION 1.0)
 enable_language(CXX)
 
 # common XO cmake macros (see github.com:Rconybea/xo-cmake)
-include(xo_macros/xo_cxx)
-include(xo_macros/code-coverage)
+include(cmake/xo-bootstrap-macros.cmake)
 
 # ----------------------------------------------------------------
 # unit test setup
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 34b77909..e85bc227 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -23,6 +23,18 @@ $ make install
 ```
 (also see .github/workflows/main.yml)
 
+## Examples
+
+```
+PYTHONPATH=~/local2/lib:$PYTHONPATH python
+>>> import xo_pyprintjson
+>>> dir(xo_pyprintjson)
+['PrintJson', '__doc__', '__file__', '__loader__', '__name__', '__package__', '__spec__']
+>>> dir(xo_pyprintjson.PrintJson)
+['__class__', '__delattr__', '__dir__', '__doc__', '__eq__', '__format__', '__ge__', '__getattribute__', '__getstate__', '__gt__', '__hash__', '__init__', '__init_subclass__', '__le__', '__lt__', '__module__', '__ne__', '__new__', '__reduce__', '__reduce_ex__', '__repr__', '__setattr__', '__sizeof__', '__str__', '__subclasshook__', 'instance', 'print']
+>>>
+```
+
 ## Development
 
 ### build for unit test coverage
diff --git a/cmake/xo-bootstrap-macros.cmake b/cmake/xo-bootstrap-macros.cmake
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..16644435
--- /dev/null
+++ b/cmake/xo-bootstrap-macros.cmake
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+if (("${CMAKE_MODULE_PATH}" STREQUAL "") OR ("${CMAKE_MODULE_PATH}" STREQUAL "prefix"))
+    # default to typical install location for xo-project-macros
+    set(CMAKE_MODULE_PATH ${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/share/cmake)
+endif()
+
+message("-- CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}")
+message("-- CMAKE_MODULE_PATH=${CMAKE_MODULE_PATH}")
+
+# needs to have been installed somewhere on CMAKE_MODULE_PATH,
+# (e.g. from xo-cmake with the same value for CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX)
+#
+include(xo_macros/xo-project-macros)
diff --git a/include/README.md b/include/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..5d2b4c67
--- /dev/null
+++ b/include/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+placeholder for future pyprintjson #include files
diff --git a/include/xo/pyprintjson/pyprintjson.hpp b/include/xo/pyprintjson/pyprintjson.hpp
deleted file mode 100644
index c5fa007d..00000000
--- a/include/xo/pyprintjson/pyprintjson.hpp
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,25 +0,0 @@
-/* @file pyprintjson.hpp
- *
- * automatically generated from src/pyprintjson/pyprintjson.hpp.in
- * see src/pyprintjson/CMakeLists.txt
- */
-
-/* python requires module name = library name
- * example:
- *   PYBIND11_MODULE(PYPRINTJSON_MODULE_NAME(), m) { ... }
- */
-#define PYPRINTJSON_MODULE_NAME() pyprintjson
-
-/* example:
- *   py::module_::import(PYPRINTJSON_MODULE_NAME_STR)
- */
-#define PYPRINTJSON_MODULE_NAME_STR "pyprintjson"
-
-/* example:
- *   PYPRINTJSON_IMPORT_MODULE()
- * replaces
- *   py::module_::import("pyprintjson")
- */
-#define PYPRINTJSON_IMPORT_MODULE() py::module_::import("pyprintjson")
-
-/* end pyprintjson.hpp */