diff --git a/.github/ci-scripts/job_runner.py b/.github/ci-scripts/job_runner.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..12c949136f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/ci-scripts/job_runner.py
@@ -0,0 +1,114 @@
+# /// script
+# requires-python = ">=3.12"
+# dependencies = []
+# ///
+
+import argparse
+import asyncio
+import json
+from dataclasses import dataclass
+from datetime import datetime, timedelta
+from pathlib import Path
+from typing import Optional
+
+from ray.job_submission import JobStatus, JobSubmissionClient
+
+
+def parse_env_var_str(env_var_str: str) -> dict:
+    iter = map(
+        lambda s: s.strip().split("="),
+        filter(lambda s: s, env_var_str.split(",")),
+    )
+    return {k: v for k, v in iter}
+
+
+async def print_logs(logs):
+    async for lines in logs:
+        print(lines, end="")
+
+
+async def wait_on_job(logs, timeout_s):
+    await asyncio.wait_for(print_logs(logs), timeout=timeout_s)
+
+
+@dataclass
+class Result:
+    query: int
+    duration: timedelta
+    error_msg: Optional[str]
+
+
+def submit_job(
+    working_dir: Path,
+    entrypoint_script: str,
+    entrypoint_args: str,
+    env_vars: str,
+    enable_ray_tracing: bool,
+):
+    env_vars_dict = parse_env_var_str(env_vars)
+    if enable_ray_tracing:
+        env_vars_dict["DAFT_ENABLE_RAY_TRACING"] = "1"
+
+    client = JobSubmissionClient(address="http://localhost:8265")
+
+    if entrypoint_args.startswith("[") and entrypoint_args.endswith("]"):
+        # this is a json-encoded list of strings; parse accordingly
+        list_of_entrypoint_args: list[str] = json.loads(entrypoint_args)
+    else:
+        list_of_entrypoint_args: list[str] = [entrypoint_args]
+
+    results = []
+
+    for index, args in enumerate(list_of_entrypoint_args):
+        entrypoint = f"DAFT_RUNNER=ray python {entrypoint_script} {args}"
+        print(f"{entrypoint=}")
+        start = datetime.now()
+        job_id = client.submit_job(
+            entrypoint=entrypoint,
+            runtime_env={
+                "working_dir": working_dir,
+                "env_vars": env_vars_dict,
+            },
+        )
+
+        asyncio.run(wait_on_job(client.tail_job_logs(job_id), timeout_s=60 * 30))
+
+        status = client.get_job_status(job_id)
+        assert status.is_terminal(), "Job should have terminated"
+        end = datetime.now()
+        duration = end - start
+        error_msg = None
+        if status != JobStatus.SUCCEEDED:
+            job_info = client.get_job_info(job_id)
+            error_msg = job_info.message
+
+        result = Result(query=index, duration=duration, error_msg=error_msg)
+        results.append(result)
+
+    print(f"{results=}")
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
+    parser.add_argument("--working-dir", type=Path, required=True)
+    parser.add_argument("--entrypoint-script", type=str, required=True)
+    parser.add_argument("--entrypoint-args", type=str, required=True)
+    parser.add_argument("--env-vars", type=str, required=True)
+    parser.add_argument("--enable-ray-tracing", action="store_true")
+
+    args = parser.parse_args()
+
+    if not (args.working_dir.exists() and args.working_dir.is_dir()):
+        raise ValueError("The working-dir must exist and be a directory")
+
+    entrypoint: Path = args.working_dir / args.entrypoint_script
+    if not (entrypoint.exists() and entrypoint.is_file()):
+        raise ValueError("The entrypoint script must exist and be a file")
+
+    submit_job(
+        working_dir=args.working_dir,
+        entrypoint_script=args.entrypoint_script,
+        entrypoint_args=args.entrypoint_args,
+        env_vars=args.env_vars,
+        enable_ray_tracing=args.enable_ray_tracing,
+    )
diff --git a/.github/ci-scripts/templatize_ray_config.py b/.github/ci-scripts/templatize_ray_config.py
index 30fe47f995..1608cf8dee 100644
--- a/.github/ci-scripts/templatize_ray_config.py
+++ b/.github/ci-scripts/templatize_ray_config.py
@@ -110,5 +110,7 @@ class Metadata(BaseModel, extra="allow"):
         if metadata:
             metadata = Metadata(**metadata)
             content = content.replace(OTHER_INSTALL_PLACEHOLDER, " ".join(metadata.dependencies))
+        else:
+            content = content.replace(OTHER_INSTALL_PLACEHOLDER, "")
 
     print(content)
diff --git a/.github/workflows/run-cluster.yaml b/.github/workflows/run-cluster.yaml
index 644250d1f1..e0262be2cb 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/run-cluster.yaml
+++ b/.github/workflows/run-cluster.yaml
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ on:
         type: string
         required: true
       entrypoint_args:
-        description: Entry-point arguments
+        description: Entry-point arguments (either a simple string or a JSON list)
         type: string
         required: false
         default: ""
@@ -79,24 +79,15 @@ jobs:
           uv run \
             --python 3.12 \
             .github/ci-scripts/templatize_ray_config.py \
-            --cluster-name "ray-ci-run-${{ github.run_id }}_${{ github.run_attempt }}" \
-            --daft-wheel-url '${{ inputs.daft_wheel_url }}' \
-            --daft-version '${{ inputs.daft_version }}' \
-            --python-version '${{ inputs.python_version }}' \
-            --cluster-profile '${{ inputs.cluster_profile }}' \
-            --working-dir '${{ inputs.working_dir }}' \
-            --entrypoint-script '${{ inputs.entrypoint_script }}'
+            --cluster-name="ray-ci-run-${{ github.run_id }}_${{ github.run_attempt }}" \
+            --daft-wheel-url='${{ inputs.daft_wheel_url }}' \
+            --daft-version='${{ inputs.daft_version }}' \
+            --python-version='${{ inputs.python_version }}' \
+            --cluster-profile='${{ inputs.cluster_profile }}' \
+            --working-dir='${{ inputs.working_dir }}' \
+            --entrypoint-script='${{ inputs.entrypoint_script }}'
         ) >> .github/assets/ray.yaml
         cat .github/assets/ray.yaml
-    - name: Setup ray env vars
-      run: |
-        source .venv/bin/activate
-        ray_env_var=$(python .github/ci-scripts/format_env_vars.py \
-          --env-vars '${{ inputs.env_vars }}' \
-          --enable-ray-tracing \
-        )
-        echo $ray_env_var
-        echo "ray_env_var=$ray_env_var" >> $GITHUB_ENV
     - name: Download private ssh key
       run: |
         KEY=$(aws secretsmanager get-secret-value --secret-id ci-github-actions-ray-cluster-key-3 --query SecretString --output text)
@@ -117,11 +108,12 @@ jobs:
           echo 'Invalid command submitted; command cannot be empty'
           exit 1
         fi
-        ray job submit \
-          --working-dir ${{ inputs.working_dir }} \
-          --address http://localhost:8265 \
-          --runtime-env-json "$ray_env_var" \
-          -- python ${{ inputs.entrypoint_script }} ${{ inputs.entrypoint_args }}
+        python .github/ci-scripts/job_runner.py \
+          --working-dir='${{ inputs.working_dir }}' \
+          --entrypoint-script='${{ inputs.entrypoint_script }}' \
+          --entrypoint-args='${{ inputs.entrypoint_args }}' \
+          --env-vars='${{ inputs.env_vars }}' \
+          --enable-ray-tracing
     - name: Download log files from ray cluster
       run: |
         source .venv/bin/activate
diff --git a/benchmarking/tpcds/ray_entrypoint.py b/benchmarking/tpcds/ray_entrypoint.py
index 10e52c4198..20656b37b9 100644
--- a/benchmarking/tpcds/ray_entrypoint.py
+++ b/benchmarking/tpcds/ray_entrypoint.py
@@ -1,17 +1,54 @@
 import argparse
 from pathlib import Path
 
-import helpers
-
 import daft
+from daft.sql.sql import SQLCatalog
+
+TABLE_NAMES = [
+    "call_center",
+    "catalog_page",
+    "catalog_returns",
+    "catalog_sales",
+    "customer",
+    "customer_address",
+    "customer_demographics",
+    "date_dim",
+    "household_demographics",
+    "income_band",
+    "inventory",
+    "item",
+    "promotion",
+    "reason",
+    "ship_mode",
+    "store",
+    "store_returns",
+    "store_sales",
+    "time_dim",
+    "warehouse",
+    "web_page",
+    "web_returns",
+    "web_sales",
+    "web_site",
+]
+
+
+def register_catalog(scale_factor: int) -> SQLCatalog:
+    return SQLCatalog(
+        tables={
+            table: daft.read_parquet(
+                f"s3://eventual-dev-benchmarking-fixtures/uncompressed/tpcds-dbgen/{scale_factor}/{table}.parquet"
+            )
+            for table in TABLE_NAMES
+        }
+    )
 
 
 def run(
-    parquet_folder: Path,
     question: int,
     dry_run: bool,
+    scale_factor: int,
 ):
-    catalog = helpers.generate_catalog(parquet_folder)
+    catalog = register_catalog(scale_factor)
     query_file = Path(__file__).parent / "queries" / f"{question:02}.sql"
     with open(query_file) as f:
         query = f.read()
@@ -23,27 +60,26 @@ def run(
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
-    parser.add_argument(
-        "--tpcds-gen-folder",
-        required=True,
-        type=Path,
-        help="Path to the TPC-DS data generation folder",
-    )
     parser.add_argument(
         "--question",
-        required=True,
         type=int,
         help="The TPC-DS question index to run",
+        required=True,
     )
     parser.add_argument(
         "--dry-run",
         action="store_true",
         help="Whether or not to run the query in dry-run mode; if true, only the plan will be printed out",
     )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        "--scale-factor",
+        type=int,
+        help="Which scale factor to run this data at",
+        required=False,
+        default=2,
+    )
     args = parser.parse_args()
 
-    tpcds_gen_folder: Path = args.tpcds_gen_folder
-    assert tpcds_gen_folder.exists()
     assert args.question in range(1, 100)
 
-    run(args.tpcds_gen_folder, args.question, args.dry_run)
+    run(question=args.question, dry_run=args.dry_run, scale_factor=args.scale_factor)