diff --git a/tools/README.rst b/tools/README.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..b3fc17493
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/README.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+RPM Packaging for OpenStack internal tooling README
+===================================================
+
+This directory provides useful tooling for contributors to
+the RPM Packaging project.
+
+
+tools/run_renderspec.sh
++++++++++++++++++++++++
+
+This tool can be used to generate usable spec files for all supported
+RPM distributions from shipped templates. It will browse recursively
+the directory passed in argument to find spec templates.
+If no directory is given, it will search in current directory.
+
+Usage::
+
+  tools/run_renderspec.sh <path>
+
+
+tools/run_speccleaner.sh
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
+
+This tool can be used to run spec-cleaner on generated spec files.
+It will browse recursively the directory passed in argument and will
+display as an unified diff, differences to our standards.
+If no directory is given, it will search in current directory.
+
+Usage::
+
+  tools/run_speccleaner.sh <path>
+
+
diff --git a/tools/run_renderspec.sh b/tools/run_renderspec.sh
index 4ac5cd9b3..9d96036d6 100755
--- a/tools/run_renderspec.sh
+++ b/tools/run_renderspec.sh
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 set -eux
 
-basedir=$1
+basedir=${1:-$PWD}
 specdir=${basedir}/openstack/
 
 WORKSPACE=${WORKSPACE:-$basedir}
diff --git a/tools/run_speccleaner.sh b/tools/run_speccleaner.sh
index da538c205..d5be92974 100755
--- a/tools/run_speccleaner.sh
+++ b/tools/run_speccleaner.sh
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 set -e
 
-basedir=$1
+basedir=${1:-$PWD}
 
 WORKSPACE=${WORKSPACE:-$basedir}
 # tempfile to store the spec-cleaner diff for all specs