Documentation/public-inbox-config.pod |  9 +++++++++
 lib/PublicInbox/Cgit.pm               | 16 +++++++++++++---

diff --git a/Documentation/public-inbox-config.pod b/Documentation/public-inbox-config.pod
index f894eb3d7ff7d148fe275e86dd6027c6e7bc69aa..291502205e0618c974d2e04732a92d7b05fe27f0 100644
--- a/Documentation/public-inbox-config.pod
+++ b/Documentation/public-inbox-config.pod
@@ -217,6 +217,15 @@ directive is configured.
 
 Default: /var/www/htdocs/cgit/cgit.cgi or /usr/lib/cgit/cgit.cgi
 
+=item publicinbox.cgitdata
+
+A path to the data directory used by cgit for storing static files.
+Typically guessed based the location of C<cgit.cgi> (from
+C<publicinbox.cgitbin>, but may be overridden.
+
+Default: basename of C<publicinbox.cgitbin>, /var/www/htdocs/cgit/
+or /usr/share/cgit/
+
 =back
 
 =head2 NAMED LIMITER (PSGI)
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/Cgit.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/Cgit.pm
index 8922ec567c902d0cf4c3a5907cc6551021990aad..353f41627b983d1426cdf6680a4b4e0b400ad6c2 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/Cgit.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/Cgit.pm
@@ -35,7 +35,15 @@ 			last;
 		}
 	}
 	unless (defined $cgit_data) {
-		foreach my $d (qw(/var/www/htdocs/cgit /usr/share/cgit)) {
+		my @dirs = qw(/var/www/htdocs/cgit /usr/share/cgit);
+
+		# local installs of cgit from source have
+		# CGIT_SCRIPT_PATH==CGIT_DATA_PATH by default,
+		# so we can usually infer the cgit_data path from cgit_bin
+		if (defined($cgit_bin) && $cgit_bin =~ m!\A(.+?)/[^/]+\z!) {
+			unshift @dirs, $1 if -d $1;
+		}
+		foreach my $d (@dirs) {
 			my $f = "$d/cgit.css";
 			next unless -f $f;
 			$cgit_data = $d;
@@ -90,6 +98,7 @@
 sub call {
 	my ($self, $env) = @_;
 	my $path_info = $env->{PATH_INFO};
+	my $cgit_data;
 
 	# handle requests without spawning cgit iff possible:
 	if ($path_info =~ m!\A/(.+?)/($PublicInbox::GitHTTPBackend::ANY)\z!ox) {
@@ -97,10 +106,11 @@ 		my ($nick, $path) = ($1, $2);
 		if (my $git = $self->{"\0$nick"}) {
 			return serve($env, $git, $path);
 		}
-	} elsif ($path_info =~ m!$self->{static}!) {
+	} elsif ($path_info =~ m!$self->{static}! &&
+		 defined($cgit_data = $self->{cgit_data})) {
 		my $f = $1;
 		my $type = Plack::MIME->mime_type($f);
-		return static_result($env, [], "$self->{cgit_data}$f", $type);
+		return static_result($env, [], $cgit_data.$f, $type);
 	}
 
 	my $cgi_env = { PATH_INFO => $path_info };