diff --git a/clippy_dev/Cargo.toml b/clippy_dev/Cargo.toml
index f48c1ee5ea2..5ac96e2210c 100644
--- a/clippy_dev/Cargo.toml
+++ b/clippy_dev/Cargo.toml
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ edition = "2018"
 bytecount = "0.6"
 clap = "2.33"
 flate2 = { version = "1.0.19", optional = true }
+fs_extra = { version = "1.2.0", optional = true }
 itertools = "0.9"
 opener = "0.4"
 regex = "1"
@@ -21,5 +22,5 @@ ureq = { version = "2.0.0-rc3", optional = true }
 walkdir = "2"
 
 [features]
-lintcheck = ["flate2", "serde_json", "tar", "toml", "ureq", "serde"]
+lintcheck = ["flate2", "serde_json", "tar", "toml", "ureq", "serde", "fs_extra"]
 deny-warnings = []
diff --git a/clippy_dev/README.md b/clippy_dev/README.md
index 6ab8ecbdbca..3846e8bd4cc 100644
--- a/clippy_dev/README.md
+++ b/clippy_dev/README.md
@@ -1,8 +1,10 @@
-## Clippy-dev is a tool to ease clippys development, similar to `rustc`s `x.py`.
+# Clippy Dev Tool 
+
+The Clippy Dev Tool is a tool to ease Clippy development, similar to `rustc`s `x.py`.
 
 Functionalities (incomplete):
 
-# lintcheck
+## `lintcheck`
 Runs clippy on a fixed set of crates read from `clippy_dev/lintcheck_crates.toml`
 and saves logs of the lint warnings into the repo.
 We can then check the diff and spot new or disappearing warnings.
diff --git a/clippy_dev/lintcheck_crates.toml b/clippy_dev/lintcheck_crates.toml
index 2cddd3e6ee7..60e70ca4eb2 100644
--- a/clippy_dev/lintcheck_crates.toml
+++ b/clippy_dev/lintcheck_crates.toml
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ rayon = {name = "rayon", versions = ['1.5.0']}
 serde = {name = "serde", versions = ['1.0.118']}
 # top 10 crates.io dls
 bitflags = {name = "bitflags", versions = ['1.2.1']}
+# crash = {name = "clippy_crash", path = "/tmp/clippy_crash"}
 libc = {name = "libc", versions = ['0.2.81']}
 log = {name = "log", versions = ['0.4.11']}
 proc-macro2 = {name = "proc-macro2", versions = ['1.0.24']}
diff --git a/clippy_dev/src/lintcheck.rs b/clippy_dev/src/lintcheck.rs
index faf13543f18..e9d0b420c3b 100644
--- a/clippy_dev/src/lintcheck.rs
+++ b/clippy_dev/src/lintcheck.rs
@@ -31,13 +31,15 @@ struct TomlCrate {
     versions: Option<Vec<String>>,
     git_url: Option<String>,
     git_hash: Option<String>,
+    path: Option<String>,
 }
 
-// represents an archive we download from crates.io
+// represents an archive we download from crates.io, or a git repo, or a local repo
 #[derive(Debug, Serialize, Deserialize, Eq, Hash, PartialEq)]
 enum CrateSource {
     CratesIo { name: String, version: String },
     Git { name: String, url: String, commit: String },
+    Path { name: String, path: PathBuf },
 }
 
 // represents the extracted sourcecode of a crate
@@ -111,7 +113,7 @@ fn download_and_extract(&self) -> Crate {
             },
             CrateSource::Git { name, url, commit } => {
                 let repo_path = {
-                    let mut repo_path = PathBuf::from("target/lintcheck/downloads");
+                    let mut repo_path = PathBuf::from("target/lintcheck/crates");
                     // add a -git suffix in case we have the same crate from crates.io and a git repo
                     repo_path.push(format!("{}-git", name));
                     repo_path
@@ -139,6 +141,37 @@ fn download_and_extract(&self) -> Crate {
                     path: repo_path,
                 }
             },
+            CrateSource::Path { name, path } => {
+                use fs_extra::dir;
+
+                // simply copy the entire directory into our target dir
+                let copy_dest = PathBuf::from("target/lintcheck/crates/");
+
+                // the source path of the crate we copied,  ${copy_dest}/crate_name
+                let crate_root = copy_dest.join(name); // .../crates/local_crate
+
+                if !crate_root.exists() {
+                    println!("Copying {} to {}", path.display(), copy_dest.display());
+
+                    dir::copy(path, &copy_dest, &dir::CopyOptions::new()).expect(&format!(
+                        "Failed to copy from {}, to  {}",
+                        path.display(),
+                        crate_root.display()
+                    ));
+                } else {
+                    println!(
+                        "Not copying {} to {}, destination already exists",
+                        path.display(),
+                        crate_root.display()
+                    );
+                }
+
+                Crate {
+                    version: String::from("local"),
+                    name: name.clone(),
+                    path: crate_root,
+                }
+            },
         }
     }
 }
@@ -211,6 +244,13 @@ fn read_crates(toml_path: Option<&str>) -> (String, Vec<CrateSource>) {
     // multiple Cratesources)
     let mut crate_sources = Vec::new();
     tomlcrates.into_iter().for_each(|tk| {
+        if let Some(ref path) = tk.path {
+            crate_sources.push(CrateSource::Path {
+                name: tk.name.clone(),
+                path: PathBuf::from(path),
+            });
+        }
+
         // if we have multiple versions, save each one
         if let Some(ref versions) = tk.versions {
             versions.iter().for_each(|ver| {
@@ -234,7 +274,10 @@ fn read_crates(toml_path: Option<&str>) -> (String, Vec<CrateSource>) {
         {
             eprintln!("tomlkrate: {:?}", tk);
             if tk.git_hash.is_some() != tk.git_url.is_some() {
-                panic!("Encountered TomlCrate with only one of git_hash and git_url!")
+                panic!("Error: Encountered TomlCrate with only one of git_hash and git_url!");
+            }
+            if tk.path.is_some() && (tk.git_hash.is_some() || tk.versions.is_some()) {
+                panic!("Error: TomlCrate can only have one of 'git_.*', 'version' or 'path' fields");
             }
             unreachable!("Failed to translate TomlCrate into CrateSource!");
         }
@@ -298,6 +341,7 @@ pub fn run(clap_config: &ArgMatches) {
             let name = match krate {
                 CrateSource::CratesIo { name, .. } => name,
                 CrateSource::Git { name, .. } => name,
+                CrateSource::Path { name, .. } => name,
             };
             name == only_one_crate
         }) {