diff --git a/tests/osautoinst/start_test.pm b/tests/osautoinst/start_test.pm
index ce46d33b..1ffd15a3 100644
--- a/tests/osautoinst/start_test.pm
+++ b/tests/osautoinst/start_test.pm
@@ -4,21 +4,17 @@ use testapi;
 use utils;
 
 sub run {
-    # please forgive the hackiness: using the openQA API but parsing the
-    # human-readable output of 'client' to get the most recent job
+    # clone the latest "minimalx" job for the most recent Tumbleweed build with matching architecture
     my $arch       = get_var('ARCH');
     my $ttest      = 'minimalx';
     my $openqa_url = get_var('OPENQA_HOST', 'https://openqa.opensuse.org');
     my $cmd        = <<"EOF";
 set -o pipefail
-last_tw_build=\$(OPENQA_CLI_RETRIES=5 openqa-cli api --host $openqa_url assets | jq '.assets | .[] | .name' | sed -n 's/.*Tumbleweed-NET-$arch-Snapshot\\([0-9]\\+\\)-Media.*\$/\\1/p' | sort -n | tail -n 1)
-echo "Last Tumbleweed build on openqa.opensuse.org: \$last_tw_build"
-[ ! -z \$last_tw_build ]
 zypper -n in jq
-resp=\$(OPENQA_CLI_RETRIES=5 openqa-cli api --host $openqa_url jobs version=Tumbleweed scope=relevant arch=$arch build=\$last_tw_build flavor=NET latest=1)
-job_id=\$(echo "\$resp" | jq '.jobs | .[] | select(.test == "$ttest") | .id')
-echo "Job Id: \$job_id"
-if [ -z \$job_id  ]; then echo "Response: \$resp" && false; fi
+resp=\$(OPENQA_CLI_RETRIES=5 openqa-cli api --host $openqa_url jobs version=Tumbleweed scope=relevant arch='$arch' flavor=NET test='$ttest' latest=1)
+job_id=\$(echo "\$resp" | jq -r '.jobs | max_by(.settings.BUILD) .id')
+echo "Job ID: \$job_id"
+if [ -z \$job_id  ]; then echo "Unable to find a suitable job to clone from o3. The API query returned: \$resp" && false; fi
 echo "Scenario: $arch-$ttest-NET: \$job_id"
 EOF
     assert_script_run($_) foreach (split /\n/, $cmd);