diff --git a/README.dev.md b/README.dev.md
index deca2aec23..2fc0fa9c71 100644
--- a/README.dev.md
+++ b/README.dev.md
@@ -277,7 +277,7 @@ does the following:
 - configures this virtual machine/container for use with Zulip,
 - creates a shared directory mapping your clone of the Zulip code inside the
   virtual machine/container at `/srv/zulip`
-- runs the `provision.py` script inside the virtual machine/container, which
+- runs the `tools/provision.py` script inside the virtual machine/container, which
   downloads all required dependencies, sets up the python environment for
   the Zulip dev environment, and initializes a default test database.
 
@@ -436,7 +436,7 @@ is likely because we've recently merged changes to the development
 environment provisioning process that you need to apply to your
 development environmnet.  To update your environment, you'll need to
 re-provision your vagrant machine using `vagrant reload --provision`
-(or just `python provision.py` from `/srv/zulip` inside the Vagrant
+(or just `python tools/provision.py` from `/srv/zulip` inside the Vagrant
 guest); this should be pretty fast and we're working to make it faster.
 
 See also the documentation on the [testing
@@ -634,16 +634,16 @@ this post](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22575261/vagrant-stuck-connection-
 
 #### npm install error
 
-The `provision.py` script may encounter an error related to `npm install`
+The `tools/provision.py` script may encounter an error related to `npm install`
 that looks something like:
 
 ```
 ==> default: + npm install
 ==> default: Traceback (most recent call last):
-==> default:   File "/srv/zulip/provision.py", line 195, in <module>
+==> default:   File "/srv/zulip/tools/provision.py", line 195, in <module>
 ==> default:
 ==> default: sys.exit(main())
-==> default:   File "/srv/zulip/provision.py", line 191, in main
+==> default:   File "/srv/zulip/tools/provision.py", line 191, in main
 ==> default:
 ==> default: run(["npm", "install"])
 ==> default:   File "/srv/zulip/zulip_tools.py", line 78, in run
@@ -848,7 +848,7 @@ running:
 
 ```
 sudo apt-get update
-python /srv/zulip/provision.py
+python /srv/zulip/tools/provision.py
 
 cd /srv/zulip
 source /srv/zulip-venv/bin/activate
@@ -1176,7 +1176,7 @@ Now you're going to install Zulip dependencies in the image:
 
 ```
 docker run -itv $(pwd):/srv/zulip -p 9991:9991 user/zulipdev /bin/bash
-$ /usr/bin/python /srv/zulip/provision.py --docker
+$ /usr/bin/python /srv/zulip/tools/provision.py --docker
 docker ps -af ancestor=user/zulipdev
 docker commit -m "Zulip installed" <container id> user/zulipdev:v2
 ```
diff --git a/Vagrantfile b/Vagrantfile
index 056fb93faa..69fbd8de9a 100644
--- a/Vagrantfile
+++ b/Vagrantfile
@@ -71,7 +71,7 @@ $provision_script = <<SCRIPT
 set -x
 set -e
 ln -nsf /srv/zulip ~/zulip
-/usr/bin/python /srv/zulip/provision.py
+/usr/bin/python /srv/zulip/tools/provision.py
 SCRIPT
 
   config.vm.provision "shell",
diff --git a/docs/architecture-overview.md b/docs/architecture-overview.md
index e1f86577f1..ea34d714c2 100644
--- a/docs/architecture-overview.md
+++ b/docs/architecture-overview.md
@@ -211,12 +211,13 @@ directory that would contain configuration files
 (`puppet/zulip/files/postgresql`) has only a utility script and a custom
 list of stopwords used by a Postgresql extension.
 
-In a development environment, configuration of that postgresql extension
-is handled by `tools/postgres-init-dev-db` (invoked by `provision.py`).
-That file also manages setting up the development postgresql user.
+In a development environment, configuration of that postgresql
+extension is handled by `tools/postgres-init-dev-db` (invoked by
+`tools/provision.py`).  That file also manages setting up the
+development postgresql user.
 
-`provision.py` also invokes `tools/do-destroy-rebuild-database` to
-create the actual database with its schema.
+`tools/provision.py` also invokes `tools/do-destroy-rebuild-database`
+to create the actual database with its schema.
 
 ### Nagios
 
diff --git a/tools/minify-js b/tools/minify-js
index 7a2b7b1e2d..14f1d9d825 100755
--- a/tools/minify-js
+++ b/tools/minify-js
@@ -84,7 +84,7 @@ CLOSURE_BINARY = '/usr/bin/closure-compiler'
 if not os.path.exists(CLOSURE_BINARY):
     CLOSURE_BINARY = 'tools/closure-compiler/run'
     if not os.path.exists(CLOSURE_BINARY):
-        print("closure-compiler not installed; the Vagrant provision.py installs it via apt "\
+        print("closure-compiler not installed; the Vagrant tools/provision.py installs it via apt "\
             "or you can manually unpack http://dl.google.com/closure-compiler/compiler-latest.zip to tools/closure-compiler")
         sys.exit(1)
 
diff --git a/provision.py b/tools/provision.py
similarity index 98%
rename from provision.py
rename to tools/provision.py
index 502d4b88f5..0f71a9dde9 100755
--- a/provision.py
+++ b/tools/provision.py
@@ -7,7 +7,9 @@ import subprocess
 
 os.environ["PYTHONUNBUFFERED"] = "y"
 
-sys.path.append(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
+ZULIP_PATH = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
+
+sys.path.append(ZULIP_PATH)
 from zulip_tools import run
 from scripts.lib.setup_venv import setup_virtualenv, VENV_DEPENDENCIES
 
@@ -21,7 +23,6 @@ SUPPORTED_PLATFORMS = {
 NPM_VERSION = '3.9.3'
 VENV_PATH = "/srv/zulip-venv"
 PY3_VENV_PATH = "/srv/zulip-py3-venv"
-ZULIP_PATH = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
 TRAVIS_NODE_PATH = os.path.join(os.environ['HOME'], 'node')
 
 if not os.path.exists(os.path.join(ZULIP_PATH, ".git")):
diff --git a/tools/travis/setup-backend b/tools/travis/setup-backend
index b004e7135b..ed3e7cd3ae 100755
--- a/tools/travis/setup-backend
+++ b/tools/travis/setup-backend
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
 #!/bin/bash
 set -e
 set -x
-python provision.py --travis
+python tools/provision.py --travis
diff --git a/tools/travis/setup-production b/tools/travis/setup-production
index ec0523db7e..a552c313c7 100755
--- a/tools/travis/setup-production
+++ b/tools/travis/setup-production
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ set -x
 # to conflicts over which version of postgres should be running.
 sudo apt-get remove postgresql-9.1 postgresql-client-9.1 postgresql-9.1-postgis-2.2 postgresql-contrib-9.1 postgresql-9.2 postgresql-client-9.2 postgresql-9.2-postgis-2.2 postgresql-contrib-9.2 postgresql-9.4 -y
 
-python provision.py --travis --production-travis
+python tools/provision.py --travis --production-travis
 cp -a tools/travis/success-http-headers.txt ~/
 source /srv/zulip-venv/bin/activate
 ./tools/build-release-tarball travis