diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index 374b49db715fd545b4c325f8ca2563fc325bb67f..447f4d65e3a9b460821f3ea33ac0e082edf44969 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -27,12 +27,15 @@ project(libcaosdb_inttests
 set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 17)
 set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD_REQUIRED ON)
 
+
+# dependency management with conan
+include(${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/conanbuildinfo.cmake)
+conan_basic_setup()
+
 # ignore some warnings here
 add_compile_options(-Wno-unused-parameter -Wno-unused-result -g)
 
 
-message(STATUS "System prefix path: ${CMAKE_SYSTEM_PREFIX_PATH}")
-message(STATUS "Local prefix path: ${CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH}")
 set(CMAKE_MODULE_PATH "${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/cmake" ${CMAKE_MODULE_PATH})
 enable_testing()
 add_subdirectory(test)
diff --git a/conanfile.txt b/conanfile.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..c0b69cd575f5fa3980375e5141d9204ca42355ad
--- /dev/null
+++ b/conanfile.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+[requires]
+libcaosdb/0.0.1
diff --git a/test/CMakeLists.txt b/test/CMakeLists.txt
index 0e44b66225ccdb17568b807f94d69219afc1ac1d..551eeb31444d9303d12fb8e89f00e20975816b28 100644
--- a/test/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/test/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -23,10 +23,10 @@ set(test_cases
     test_connection
     )
 
-find_package(caosdb REQUIRED)
-message(STATUS "Found libcaosdb: ${caosdb_DIR}")
+#find_package(caosdb REQUIRED)
+#message(STATUS "Found libcaosdb: ${caosdb_DIR}")
 
-include(FetchGTest)
+#include(FetchGTest)
 # add special cmake functions for gtest
 include(GoogleTest REQUIRED)
 
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ math(EXPR len_test_cases "${len_test_cases} - 1")
 foreach (i RANGE "${len_test_cases}")
     list(GET test_cases ${i} test_case_name)
     add_executable(${test_case_name} ${test_case_name}.cpp)
-    target_link_libraries(${test_case_name} PRIVATE gtest_main caosdb::caosdb)
+    target_link_libraries(${test_case_name} PRIVATE caosdb::caosdb ${CONAN_LIBS})
     set_target_properties(${test_case_name} PROPERTIES CXX_CLANG_TIDY "")
     gtest_discover_tests(${test_case_name}
         PROPERTIES