diff --git a/src/actions/loadData.js b/src/actions/loadData.js
index 5beaf4db0..a8aa6d5e9 100644
--- a/src/actions/loadData.js
+++ b/src/actions/loadData.js
@@ -299,7 +299,7 @@ Dataset.prototype.fetchSidecars = async function fetchSidecars() {
       .catch((reason) => Promise.resolve(reason))
   }
 
-  if (!this.rootSequence) {
+  if (!mainJson.root_sequence && !this.rootSequence) {
     // Note that the browser may log a GET error if the above 404s
     this.rootSequence = fetchJSON(this.apiCalls.rootSequence)
       .catch((reason) => Promise.resolve(reason))
diff --git a/src/actions/recomputeReduxState.js b/src/actions/recomputeReduxState.js
index 9c3ce592e..e1168b1e7 100644
--- a/src/actions/recomputeReduxState.js
+++ b/src/actions/recomputeReduxState.js
@@ -733,6 +733,11 @@ const createMetadataStateFromJSON = (json) => {
   if (json.meta.panels) {
     metadata.panels = json.meta.panels;
   }
+  if (json.root_sequence) {
+    /* A dataset may set the root sequence inline (i.e. within the main dataset JSON), which
+    we capture here. Alternatively it may be a sidecar JSON file */
+    metadata.rootSequence = json.root_sequence;
+  }
   if (json.meta.display_defaults) {
     metadata.displayDefaults = {};
     const jsonKeyToAuspiceKey = {