diff --git a/python-setup/auto_install_packages.py b/python-setup/auto_install_packages.py
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..dd456ed7c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/python-setup/auto_install_packages.py
@@ -0,0 +1,115 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python3
+
+import sys
+import os
+import subprocess
+from tempfile import mkdtemp
+
+import extractor_version
+
+
+def _check_call(command):
+    print('+ {}'.format(' '.join(command)), flush=True)
+    subprocess.check_call(command, stdin=subprocess.DEVNULL)
+
+
+def _check_output(command):
+    print('+ {}'.format(' '.join(command)), flush=True)
+    out = subprocess.check_output(command, stdin=subprocess.DEVNULL)
+    print(out, flush=True)
+    sys.stderr.flush()
+    return out
+
+
+def install_packages_with_poetry():
+    try:
+        _check_call(['poetry', 'install', '--no-root'])
+    except subprocess.CalledProcessError:
+        sys.exit('package installation with poetry failed, see error above')
+
+    # poetry is super annoying with `poetry run`, since it will put lots of output on
+    # STDOUT if the current global python interpreter is not matching the one in the
+    # virtualenv for the package, which was the case for using poetry for Python 2 when
+    # default system interpreter was Python 3 :/
+
+    poetry_out = _check_output(['poetry', 'run', 'which', 'python'])
+    python_executable_path = poetry_out.decode('utf-8').splitlines()[-1]
+
+    return python_executable_path
+
+
+def install_packages_with_pipenv():
+    try:
+        _check_call(['pipenv', 'install', '--keep-outdated', '--ignore-pipfile'])
+    except subprocess.CalledProcessError:
+        sys.exit('package installation with pipenv failed, see error above')
+
+    pipenv_out = _check_output(['pipenv', 'run', 'which', 'python'])
+    python_executable_path = pipenv_out.decode('utf-8').splitlines()[-1]
+
+    return python_executable_path
+
+
+def install_requirements_txt_packages(version: int, requirements_txt_path: str):
+    # create temporary directory ... that just lives "forever"
+    venv_path = mkdtemp(prefix='codeql-action-python-autoinstall-')
+
+    # virtualenv is a bit nicer for setting up virtual environment, since it will provide
+    # up-to-date versions of pip/setuptools/wheel which basic `python3 -m venv venv` won't
+
+    if version == 2:
+        _check_call(['python2', '-m', 'virtualenv', venv_path])
+    elif version == 3:
+        _check_call(['python3', '-m', 'virtualenv', venv_path])
+
+    venv_pip = os.path.join(venv_path, 'bin', 'pip')
+    try:
+        _check_call([venv_pip, 'install', '-r', requirements_txt_path])
+    except subprocess.CalledProcessError:
+        sys.exit('package installation with pip failed, see error above')
+
+    venv_python = os.path.join(venv_path, 'bin', 'python')
+
+    return venv_python
+
+
+def install_packages() -> str:
+    if os.path.exists('poetry.lock'):
+        print('Found poetry.lock, will install packages with poetry', flush=True)
+        return install_packages_with_poetry()
+
+    if os.path.exists('Pipfile') or os.path.exists('Pipfile.lock'):
+        if os.path.exists('Pipfile.lock'):
+            print('Found Pipfile.lock, will install packages with Pipenv', flush=True)
+        else:
+            print('Found Pipfile, will install packages with Pipenv', flush=True)
+        return install_packages_with_pipenv()
+
+    version = extractor_version.get_extractor_version(sys.argv[1], quiet=False)
+
+    if os.path.exists('requirements.txt'):
+        print('Found requirements.txt, will install packages with pip', flush=True)
+        return install_requirements_txt_packages(version, 'requirements.txt')
+
+    print("was not able to install packages automatically", flush=True)
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    if len(sys.argv) != 2:
+        sys.exit('Must provide base directory for codeql tool as only argument')
+
+    # The binaries for packages installed with `pip install --user` are not available on
+    # PATH by default, so we need to manually add them.
+    os.environ['PATH'] = os.path.expanduser('~/.local/bin') + os.pathsep + os.environ['PATH']
+
+    python_executable_path = install_packages()
+
+    if python_executable_path is not None:
+        print("Setting CODEQL_PYTHON={}".format(python_executable_path))
+        print("::set-env name=CODEQL_PYTHON::{}".format(python_executable_path))
+
+# TODO:
+# - no packages
+# - poetry without version
+# - pipenv without version
+# - pipenv without lockfile
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/python-setup/extractor_version.py b/python-setup/extractor_version.py
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..0465c32ae
--- /dev/null
+++ b/python-setup/extractor_version.py
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+
+# A quick hack to get package installation for Code Scanning to work,
+# since it needs to know which version we're going to analyze the project as.
+
+# This file needs to be placed next to `python_tracer.py`, so in
+# `<codeql-path>/python/tools/`
+
+from __future__ import print_function, division
+
+import os
+import sys
+from contextlib import contextmanager
+
+
+@contextmanager
+def suppress_stdout_stderr():
+    # taken from
+    # https://thesmithfam.org/blog/2012/10/25/temporarily-suppress-console-output-in-python/
+    with open(os.devnull, "w") as devnull:
+        old_stdout = sys.stdout
+        old_stderr = sys.stderr
+        sys.stdout = devnull
+        sys.stderr = devnull
+        try:
+            yield
+        finally:
+            sys.stdout = old_stdout
+            sys.stderr = old_stderr
+
+
+def get_extractor_version(codeql_base_dir: str, quiet: bool = True) -> int:
+
+    extractor_dir = os.path.join(codeql_base_dir, 'python', 'tools')
+    sys.path = [extractor_dir] + sys.path
+
+    from python_tracer import getzipfilename
+
+    zippath = os.path.join(extractor_dir, getzipfilename())
+    sys.path = [zippath] + sys.path
+    import buildtools.discover
+
+    if quiet:
+        with suppress_stdout_stderr():
+            return buildtools.discover.get_version()
+    else:
+        return buildtools.discover.get_version()
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    codeql_base_dir = sys.argv[1]
+    version = get_extractor_version(codeql_base_dir)
+    print('{!r}'.format(version))
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/python-setup/install_tools.sh b/python-setup/install_tools.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..cf38509f1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/python-setup/install_tools.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+set -x
+set -e
+
+# The binaries for packages installed with `pip install --user` are not available on PATH
+# by default, so we fix up PATH to suppress warnings by pip. This also needs to be done by
+# any script that needs to access poetry/pipenv.
+#
+# Using `::add-path::` from the actions toolkit is not enough, since that only affects
+# subsequent actions in the current job, and not the current action.
+export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
+
+python2 -m pip install --user --upgrade pip setuptools wheel
+python3 -m pip install --user --upgrade pip setuptools wheel
+
+# virtualenv is a bit nicer for setting up virtual environment, since it will provide up-to-date versions of
+# pip/setuptools/wheel which basic `python3 -m venv venv` won't
+python2 -m pip install --user virtualenv
+python3 -m pip install --user virtualenv
+
+# venv is required for installation of poetry or pipenv (I forgot which)
+sudo apt-get install -y python3-venv
+
+# We're install poetry with pip instead of the recommended way, since the recommended way
+# caused some problem since `poetry run` gives output like:
+#
+#     /root/.poetry/lib/poetry/_vendor/py2.7/subprocess32.py:149: RuntimeWarning: The _posixsubprocess module is not being used. Child process reliability may suffer if your program uses threads.
+#       "program uses threads.", RuntimeWarning)
+#     LGTM_PYTHON_SETUP_VERSION=The currently activated Python version 2.7.18 is not supported by the project (^3.5). Trying to find and use a compatible version. Using python3 (3.8.2) 3
+
+python3 -m pip install --user poetry pipenv
\ No newline at end of file