lib/PublicInbox/Admin.pm    | 34 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 script/public-inbox-compact | 35 ++++++++---------------------------
 script/public-inbox-index   | 53 ++++++++++-------------------------------------------

diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/Admin.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/Admin.pm
index 3eff5cdef09dfbbe5c9b3a2a44fc4a01cb310dc1..278482090a8bbc7d09d26a61b6b576f2caed0978 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/Admin.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/Admin.pm
@@ -41,6 +41,40 @@ 		abs_path($dir);
 	}
 }
 
+sub resolve_inboxes {
+	my ($argv, $warn_on_unconfigured) = @_;
+	require PublicInbox::Config;
+	require PublicInbox::Inbox;
+
+	my @ibxs = map { resolve_repo_dir($_) } @$argv;
+	push(@ibxs, resolve_repo_dir()) unless @ibxs;
+
+	my %dir2ibx;
+	if (my $config = eval { PublicInbox::Config->new }) {
+		$config->each_inbox(sub {
+			my ($ibx) = @_;
+			$dir2ibx{abs_path($ibx->{mainrepo})} = $ibx;
+		});
+	} elsif ($warn_on_unconfigured) {
+		# do we really care about this?  It's annoying...
+		warn $warn_on_unconfigured, "\n";
+	}
+	for my $i (0..$#ibxs) {
+		my $dir = $ibxs[$i];
+		$ibxs[$i] = $dir2ibx{$dir} ||= do {
+			my $name = "unconfigured-$i";
+			PublicInbox::Inbox->new({
+				name => $name,
+				address => [ "$name\@example.com" ],
+				mainrepo => $dir,
+				# TODO: consumers may want to warn on this:
+				#-unconfigured => 1,
+			});
+		};
+	}
+	@ibxs;
+}
+
 # TODO: make Devel::Peek optional, only used for daemon
 my @base_mod = qw(Email::MIME Date::Parse Devel::Peek);
 my @over_mod = qw(DBD::SQLite DBI);
diff --git a/script/public-inbox-compact b/script/public-inbox-compact
index 4aa6273dc2435272c537c2ebceb27b4eefbeef5a..709fb92a4313caeb21f2255c27efb4545d13c143 100755
--- a/script/public-inbox-compact
+++ b/script/public-inbox-compact
@@ -1,35 +1,16 @@
 #!/usr/bin/perl -w
-# Copyright (C) 2018 all contributors <meta@public-inbox.org>
+# Copyright (C) 2018-2019 all contributors <meta@public-inbox.org>
 # License: AGPL-3.0+ <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt>
 use strict;
 use warnings;
-use Getopt::Long qw(:config gnu_getopt no_ignore_case auto_abbrev);
-use PublicInbox::Search;
-use PublicInbox::Config;
 use PublicInbox::InboxWritable;
-use Cwd 'abs_path';
 use PublicInbox::Xapcmd;
+use PublicInbox::Admin;
+PublicInbox::Admin::require_or_die('-index');
 my $usage = "Usage: public-inbox-compact REPO_DIR\n";
-my $dir = shift or die $usage;
-my $config = eval { PublicInbox::Config->new };
-my $ibx;
-$dir = abs_path($dir);
-if ($config) {
-	$config->each_inbox(sub {
-		$ibx = $_[0] if abs_path($_[0]->{mainrepo}) eq $dir
-	});
+my @ibxs = PublicInbox::Admin::resolve_inboxes(\@ARGV) or die $usage;
+foreach (@ibxs) {
+	my $ibx = PublicInbox::InboxWritable->new($_);
+	# we rely on --no-renumber to keep docids synched to NNTP
+	PublicInbox::Xapcmd::run($ibx, [qw(xapian-compact --no-renumber)]);
 }
-unless ($ibx) {
-	warn "W: $dir not configured in ".
-		PublicInbox::Config::default_file() . "\n";
-	$ibx = {
-		mainrepo => $dir,
-		name => 'ignored',
-		address => [ 'old@example.com' ],
-	};
-	$ibx = PublicInbox::Inbox->new($ibx);
-}
-$ibx = PublicInbox::InboxWritable->new($ibx);
-
-# we rely on --no-renumber to keep docids synched to NNTP
-PublicInbox::Xapcmd::run($ibx, [qw(xapian-compact --no-renumber)]);
diff --git a/script/public-inbox-index b/script/public-inbox-index
index cf001cc1504e219cfe384168acd6a19f0a5cf3a1..9399c272a1b25f2a66b06c4abfc535d52fe81238 100755
--- a/script/public-inbox-index
+++ b/script/public-inbox-index
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 #!/usr/bin/perl -w
-# Copyright (C) 2015-2018 all contributors <meta@public-inbox.org>
+# Copyright (C) 2015-2019 all contributors <meta@public-inbox.org>
 # License: AGPL-3.0+ <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt>
 # Basic tool to create a Xapian search index for a git repository
 # configured for public-inbox.
@@ -10,14 +10,8 @@ use strict;
 use warnings;
 use Getopt::Long qw(:config gnu_getopt no_ignore_case auto_abbrev);
 my $usage = "public-inbox-index REPO_DIR";
-use PublicInbox::Admin qw(resolve_repo_dir);
+use PublicInbox::Admin;
 PublicInbox::Admin::require_or_die('-index');
-require PublicInbox::Config;
-
-my $config = eval { PublicInbox::Config->new } || eval {
-	warn "public-inbox unconfigured for serving, indexing anyways...\n";
-	undef;
-};
 
 my $reindex;
 my $prune;
@@ -32,53 +26,26 @@ );
 GetOptions(%opts) or die "bad command-line args\n$usage";
 die "--jobs must be positive\n" if defined $jobs && $jobs < 0;
 
-my @dirs;
-
-if (@ARGV) {
-	@dirs = map { resolve_repo_dir($_) } @ARGV;
-} else {
-	@dirs = (resolve_repo_dir());
-}
-
 sub usage { print STDERR "Usage: $usage\n"; exit 1 }
-usage() unless @dirs;
 
-defined($config) and $config->each_inbox(sub {
-	my ($ibx) = @_;
-
-	for my $i (0..$#dirs) {
-		next if $dirs[$i] ne $ibx->{mainrepo};
-		$dirs[$i] = $ibx;
-	}
-});
-
-my @inboxes;
+# do we really care about this message?  It's annoying...
+my $warn = 'public-inbox unconfigured for serving, indexing anyways...';
+my @ibxs = PublicInbox::Admin::resolve_inboxes(\@ARGV, $warn);
+PublicInbox::Admin::require_or_die('-index');
+usage() unless @ibxs;
 my $mods = {};
-
-foreach my $dir (@dirs) {
-	my $ibx = $dir;
-	if (!ref($ibx)) {
-		unless (-d $dir) {
-			die "$dir does not appear to be an inbox repository\n";
-		}
-		$ibx = PublicInbox::Inbox->new({
-			mainrepo => $dir,
-			name => 'unnamed',
-			indexlevel => $indexlevel,
-			version => -f "$dir/inbox.lock" ? 2 : 1,
-		});
-	} elsif (defined $indexlevel && !defined($ibx->{indexlevel})) {
+foreach my $ibx (@ibxs) {
+	if (defined $indexlevel && !defined($ibx->{indexlevel})) {
 		# XXX: users can shoot themselves in the foot, with this...
 		$ibx->{indexlevel} = $indexlevel;
 	}
-	push @inboxes, $ibx;
 	PublicInbox::Admin::scan_ibx_modules($mods, $ibx);
 }
 
 PublicInbox::Admin::require_or_die(keys %$mods);
 
 require PublicInbox::SearchIdx;
-index_inbox($_) for @inboxes;
+index_inbox($_) for @ibxs;
 
 sub index_inbox {
 	my ($repo) = @_;