diff --git a/lib/__init__.py b/lib/__init__.py
deleted file mode 100644
index b0fb0b2..0000000
--- a/lib/__init__.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,13 +0,0 @@
-# Copyright 2017-present Open Networking Foundation
-#
-# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
-# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
-# You may obtain a copy of the License at
-#
-# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
-#
-# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
-# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
-# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
-# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
-# limitations under the License.
diff --git a/lib/xos-migrate/xosmigrate/main.py b/lib/xos-migrate/xosmigrate/main.py
index f8f5d6b..8d76197 100644
--- a/lib/xos-migrate/xosmigrate/main.py
+++ b/lib/xos-migrate/xosmigrate/main.py
@@ -293,12 +293,22 @@
     help="The name of the folder containing the service in cord/orchestration/xos_services"
 )
 
-parser.add_argument(
+pathgroup = parser.add_mutually_exclusive_group()
+
+pathgroup.add_argument(
     "-r",
     "--repo",
-    default=get_abs_path("~/cord"),
+    default=get_abs_path("../.."),
     dest="repo_root",
-    help="The location of the folder containing the CORD repo root (default to ~/cord)"
+    help="Path to the CORD repo root (defaults to '../..'). Mutually exclusive with '--xos'."
+)
+
+pathgroup.add_argument(
+    "-x",
+    "--xos",
+    default=None,
+    dest="xos_root",
+    help="Path to directory of the XOS repo. Incompatible with '--repo' and only works for core migrations."
 )
 
 parser.add_argument(
@@ -330,10 +340,17 @@
     print_banner(args.repo_root)
 
     # find absolute path to the code
-    xos_path = get_abs_path(os.path.join(args.repo_root, "orchestration/xos/xos/"))
+    if args.xos_root:  # if args.xos_root is set, testing only the core
+        xos_path = get_abs_path(args.xos_root)
+        if args.service_names != ["core"]:
+            log.error("When using --xos, can only check the core models")
+            sys.exit(1)
+    else:
+        xos_path = get_abs_path(os.path.join(args.repo_root, "orchestration/xos/xos/"))
+        service_base_dir = get_abs_path(os.path.join(xos_path, "../../xos_services/"))
+        service_dest_dir = get_abs_path(os.path.join(xos_path, "services/"))
+
     core_dir = get_abs_path(os.path.join(xos_path, "core/models/"))
-    service_base_dir = get_abs_path(os.path.join(xos_path, "../../xos_services/"))
-    service_dest_dir = get_abs_path(os.path.join(xos_path, "services/"))
 
     # we need to append the xos folder to sys.path
     original_sys_path = sys.path
diff --git a/lib/xos-synchronizer/tox.ini b/lib/xos-synchronizer/tox.ini
index 2e09d5e..b98744a 100644
--- a/lib/xos-synchronizer/tox.ini
+++ b/lib/xos-synchronizer/tox.ini
@@ -25,18 +25,18 @@
 
 commands =
   nose2 -c tox.ini --verbose --junit-xml
-;  should widen flake8 to also cover xos-synchronizer-tests
+; FIXME: should widen flake8 to also cover xos-synchronizer-tests
   flake8 xossynchronizer
 
 [flake8]
-; F821, ignoring undefined names would be valuable, but synchronizer dynamically loads them
-; W503, allow breaks before binary operators (see: https://github.com/PyCQA/pycodestyle/issues/498)
-;ignore = F821,W503
 max-line-length = 119
 
 [unittest]
 plugins=nose2.plugins.junitxml
 
+[junit-xml]
+path=nose2-results.xml
+
 [coverage]
 always-on = True
 coverage = xossynchronizer