diff --git a/manifest/ocischema/index.go b/manifest/ocischema/index.go
index 97b3943a6..16b7b6873 100644
--- a/manifest/ocischema/index.go
+++ b/manifest/ocischema/index.go
@@ -60,6 +60,10 @@ type ImageIndex struct {
 
 	// Manifests references a list of manifests
 	Manifests []ManifestDescriptor `json:"manifests"`
+
+	// Annotations is an optional field that contains arbitrary metadata for the
+	// image index
+	Annotations map[string]string `json:"annotations,omitempty"`
 }
 
 // References returns the distribution descriptors for the referenced image
@@ -83,20 +87,22 @@ type DeserializedImageIndex struct {
 	canonical []byte
 }
 
-// FromDescriptors takes a slice of descriptors, and returns a
-// DeserializedManifestList which contains the resulting manifest list
-// and its JSON representation.
-func FromDescriptors(descriptors []ManifestDescriptor) (*DeserializedImageIndex, error) {
-	return fromDescriptorsWithMediaType(descriptors, v1.MediaTypeImageIndex)
+// FromDescriptors takes a slice of descriptors and a map of annotations, and
+// returns a DeserializedManifestList which contains the resulting manifest list
+// and its JSON representation. If annotations is nil or empty then the
+// annotations property will be omitted from the JSON representation.
+func FromDescriptors(descriptors []ManifestDescriptor, annotations map[string]string) (*DeserializedImageIndex, error) {
+	return fromDescriptorsWithMediaType(descriptors, annotations, v1.MediaTypeImageIndex)
 }
 
 // fromDescriptorsWithMediaType is for testing purposes, it's useful to be able to specify the media type explicitly
-func fromDescriptorsWithMediaType(descriptors []ManifestDescriptor, mediaType string) (*DeserializedImageIndex, error) {
+func fromDescriptorsWithMediaType(descriptors []ManifestDescriptor, annotations map[string]string, mediaType string) (*DeserializedImageIndex, error) {
 	m := ImageIndex{
 		Versioned: manifest.Versioned{
 			SchemaVersion: 2,
 			MediaType:     mediaType,
 		},
+		Annotations: annotations,
 	}
 
 	m.Manifests = make([]ManifestDescriptor, len(descriptors))
diff --git a/manifest/ocischema/index_test.go b/manifest/ocischema/index_test.go
index 90d9f5861..06af34f9a 100644
--- a/manifest/ocischema/index_test.go
+++ b/manifest/ocischema/index_test.go
@@ -11,12 +11,6 @@ import (
 	v1 "github.com/opencontainers/image-spec/specs-go/v1"
 )
 
-// TODO (mikebrow): add annotations on the manifest list (index) and support for
-// empty platform structs (move to Platform *Platform `json:"platform,omitempty"`
-// from current Platform PlatformSpec `json:"platform"`) in the manifest descriptor.
-// Requires changes to distribution/distribution/manifest/manifestlist.ManifestList and .ManifestDescriptor
-// and associated serialization APIs in manifestlist.go. Or split the OCI index and
-// docker manifest list implementations, which would require a lot of refactoring.
 const expectedOCIImageIndexSerialization = `{
    "schemaVersion": 2,
    "mediaType": "application/vnd.oci.image.index.v1+json",
@@ -50,7 +44,11 @@ const expectedOCIImageIndexSerialization = `{
             "os": "sunos"
          }
       }
-   ]
+   ],
+   "annotations": {
+      "com.example.favourite-colour": "blue",
+      "com.example.locale": "en_GB"
+   }
 }`
 
 func makeTestOCIImageIndex(t *testing.T, mediaType string) ([]ManifestDescriptor, *DeserializedImageIndex) {
@@ -87,8 +85,12 @@ func makeTestOCIImageIndex(t *testing.T, mediaType string) ([]ManifestDescriptor
 			},
 		},
 	}
+	annotations := map[string]string{
+		"com.example.favourite-colour": "blue",
+		"com.example.locale":           "en_GB",
+	}
 
-	deserialized, err := fromDescriptorsWithMediaType(manifestDescriptors, mediaType)
+	deserialized, err := fromDescriptorsWithMediaType(manifestDescriptors, annotations, mediaType)
 	if err != nil {
 		t.Fatalf("error creating DeserializedManifestList: %v", err)
 	}
diff --git a/registry/storage/manifeststore_test.go b/registry/storage/manifeststore_test.go
index dd51c2f41..bba3538e1 100644
--- a/registry/storage/manifeststore_test.go
+++ b/registry/storage/manifeststore_test.go
@@ -576,7 +576,7 @@ func TestLinkPathFuncs(t *testing.T) {
 }
 
 func ociIndexFromDesriptorsWithMediaType(descriptors []ocischema.ManifestDescriptor, mediaType string) (*ocischema.DeserializedImageIndex, error) {
-	manifest, err := ocischema.FromDescriptors(descriptors)
+	manifest, err := ocischema.FromDescriptors(descriptors, nil)
 	if err != nil {
 		return nil, err
 	}