diff --git a/nodepool/elements/nodepool-base/README.rst b/nodepool/elements/nodepool-base/README.rst
index aecaf4b85d..e5052b931c 100644
--- a/nodepool/elements/nodepool-base/README.rst
+++ b/nodepool/elements/nodepool-base/README.rst
@@ -4,13 +4,6 @@ nodepool-base
 
 Tasks to deal with image metadata and other Nodepool cloud specific tweaks.
 
-Environment variables:
-
-``NODEPOOL_SCRIPTDIR`` path to copy Nodepool scripts from. It is set
-automatically by Nodepool.  For local hacking override it to where your scripts
-are. Default:
-``$TMP_MOUNT_PATH/opt/git/opendev.org/openstack/project-config/nodepool/scripts``.
-
 Name resolution
 ---------------
 
diff --git a/nodepool/elements/nodepool-base/extra-data.d/99-copy-nodepool-scripts b/nodepool/elements/nodepool-base/extra-data.d/99-copy-nodepool-scripts
deleted file mode 100755
index 35be015a10..0000000000
--- a/nodepool/elements/nodepool-base/extra-data.d/99-copy-nodepool-scripts
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,39 +0,0 @@
-#!/bin/bash
-
-# Copyright (c) 2014 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
-#
-# 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.
-
-# Copy the nodepools scripts into the image
-
-# This is 99 because it needs to depend on source-repositories having been
-# run, because the default fallthrough location for the nodepool scripts
-# is the git repo that's been cloned into the image.
-
-# During a nodepool run, it's expected that NODEPOOL_SCRIPTDIR is set, in
-# which case ordering doesn't matter - but for a developer hacking locally
-# who is not hacking on those scripts, it's an imposition to make them
-# set an env var.
-
-if [ ${DIB_DEBUG_TRACE:-0} -gt 0 ]; then
-    set -x
-fi
-set -eu
-set -o pipefail
-
-NODEPOOL_SCRIPTDIR=${NODEPOOL_SCRIPTDIR:-$TMP_MOUNT_PATH/opt/git/opendev.org/openstack/project-config/nodepool/scripts}
-
-sudo cp -a $NODEPOOL_SCRIPTDIR $TMP_MOUNT_PATH/opt/nodepool-scripts
-sudo chmod -R a+rx $TMP_MOUNT_PATH/opt/nodepool-scripts
diff --git a/nodepool/scripts/do-not-delete.txt b/nodepool/scripts/do-not-delete.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..ef60e4eb06
--- /dev/null
+++ b/nodepool/scripts/do-not-delete.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+2020-03-03
+==========
+
+The nodepool/scripts directory is empty and we no longer keep anything
+in here.
+
+This used to be used in the days of "snapshot images"; when we would
+boot an upstream image from cloud providers, run a series of scripts
+on it and then snapshot that image for use during CI.  This directory
+would have customisation scripts to run.
+
+Now we build daily images with dib and upload them and this is unused.
+
+However, the directory remains important as a range of puppet things
+try to deploy it as configuration.  Once all the puppet parts of
+puppet-<openstackci|nodepool|project-config> have been removed, we can
+remove this directory.