diff --git a/.github/workflows/submodule_sync.yml b/.github/workflows/submodule_sync.yml
deleted file mode 100755
index e85aab4..0000000
--- a/.github/workflows/submodule_sync.yml
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,57 +0,0 @@
-name: submodules-sync
-
-permissions:
-  contents: read
-
-on:
-  push:
-    branches: ['**']
-    tags: ['v*.*.*']
-  pull_request:
-    branches: ['**']
-  release:
-    types: [published]
-  workflow_dispatch:
-
-jobs:
-  sync:
-    name: 'Submodules Sync'
-    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
-    if: github.actor != 'github-actions[bot]'
-
-    defaults:
-      run:
-        shell: bash
-
-    steps:
-      - name: Checkout repository with submodules
-        uses: actions/checkout@v5
-        with:
-          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
-          submodules: recursive
-          persist-credentials: false
-
-      - name: Sync submodule URLs
-        run: |
-          git submodule sync --recursive
-
-      - name: Update submodules
-        run: |
-          git -c protocol.version=2 submodule update --init --remote --recursive --jobs 8
-
-      - name: Commit and push submodule updates
-        env:
-          GH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
-        run: |
-          set -euo pipefail
-          git config user.name 'github-actions[bot]'
-          git config user.email '41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com'
-          git remote set-url origin https://x-access-token:${GH_TOKEN}@github.com/${{ github.repository }}
-          # Stage only submodule pointer updates and .gitmodules
-          git add .gitmodules $(git config -f .gitmodules --get-regexp path | awk '{print $2}') || true
-          if git diff --cached --quiet; then
-            echo "No submodule pointer changes to commit"
-            exit 0
-          fi
-          git commit -m "chore(submodules): auto-update pointers [skip ci]"
-          git push
diff --git a/Dockerfile_hub b/Dockerfile_hub
index f125c42..009cf84 100644
--- a/Dockerfile_hub
+++ b/Dockerfile_hub
@@ -93,7 +93,7 @@ RUN apt-get clean autoclean && apt-get autoremove --purge -y
 RUN pip3 install --no-cache-dir --upgrade pip
 
 # utils for jupyterhub
-RUN pip3 install --no-cache-dir setuptools wheel virtualenv cython netifaces
+RUN pip3 install --no-cache-dir setuptools wheel
 
 # jupyterhub stuff
 RUN pip3 install --no-cache-dir ipywidgets importlib_metadata jupyterhub-firstuseauthenticator dockerspawner jupyterhub-nativeauthenticator
diff --git a/Dockerfile_singleuser b/Dockerfile_singleuser
index 2aeb413..03e3509 100644
--- a/Dockerfile_singleuser
+++ b/Dockerfile_singleuser
@@ -213,12 +213,18 @@ RUN uv pip install --upgrade --system pip setuptools wheel
 # install the rest of the packages including medcat
 COPY ./requirements.txt /srv/jupyterhub/
 
+# https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu is out of date on packages, using alternative URL for CPU
 RUN if [ "$GPU_BUILD" = "true" ] && [ "$CPU_ARCHITECTURE" = "amd64" ]; then \
-      uv pip install --system --no-cache-dir -r /srv/jupyterhub/requirements.txt ; \
+      uv pip install --system --no-cache-dir -r /srv/jupyterhub/requirements.txt && \
+      uv run python -m medcat download-scripts /srv/jupyterhub/medcat-scripts ; \
     else \
-      uv pip install --system --no-cache-dir -r /srv/jupyterhub/requirements.txt ; \
+      uv pip install --system --no-cache-dir -r /srv/jupyterhub/requirements.txt --index-url https://pypi.org/simple && \
+      uv run python -m medcat download-scripts /srv/jupyterhub/medcat-scripts ; \
     fi
 
+# move notebooks
+RUN mv /srv/jupyterhub/medcat-scripts/* /home/jovyan/work/. 
+
 #######################################################################################################
 
 # install R and other dependencies
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index f5afabd..8e40572 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 wheel==0.45.1
 
+medcat==2.3.0
+# TODO: cogstack-es 8/9 handling
 
 virtualenv==20.31.2
 ipywidgets==8.1.7
@@ -34,7 +36,7 @@ dataclasses==0.6
 jsonpickle==4.1.0
 jsonext==0.4.2
 psycopg2==2.9.10
-psycopg2-binary==2.9.10
+psycopg2-binary>=2.9.10
 pyodbc==5.2.0
 openpyxl==3.1.5
 dvc==3.59.2