diff --git a/cli/src/crawl.rs b/cli/src/crawl.rs
index c969301..5685d14 100644
--- a/cli/src/crawl.rs
+++ b/cli/src/crawl.rs
@@ -136,6 +136,11 @@ pub struct MedusaCrawl {
   /// These patterns will not read through symlinks.
   #[arg(short, long, default_values_t = Vec::<RegexWrapper>::new())]
   pub ignore_patterns: Vec<RegexWrapper>,
+  /// Where [`paths_to_crawl`](Self::paths_to_crawl) is relative to.
+  ///
+  /// Defaults to the process's current working directory if not provided.
+  #[arg(short, long, default_value = None)]
+  pub working_dir: Option<PathBuf>,
 }
 
 impl From<MedusaCrawl> for lib_crawl::MedusaCrawl {
@@ -143,6 +148,7 @@ impl From<MedusaCrawl> for lib_crawl::MedusaCrawl {
     let MedusaCrawl {
       paths_to_crawl,
       ignore_patterns,
+      working_dir,
     } = x;
     let ignore_patterns = RegexSet::new(
       ignore_patterns
@@ -153,6 +159,7 @@ impl From<MedusaCrawl> for lib_crawl::MedusaCrawl {
     Self {
       paths_to_crawl: paths_to_crawl.into_iter().map(PathBuf::from).collect(),
       ignores: lib_crawl::Ignores::new(ignore_patterns),
+      cwd: working_dir,
     }
   }
 }
diff --git a/lib/benches/my_benchmark.rs b/lib/benches/my_benchmark.rs
index f49b796..5be4643 100644
--- a/lib/benches/my_benchmark.rs
+++ b/lib/benches/my_benchmark.rs
@@ -53,6 +53,14 @@ mod parallel_merge {
     Ok((input_files, extract_dir))
   }
 
+  async fn execute_medusa_crawl(
+    extracted_dir: &Path,
+  ) -> Result<lib::crawl::CrawlResult, lib::crawl::MedusaCrawlError> {
+    let ignores = lib::crawl::Ignores::default();
+    let crawl_spec = lib::crawl::MedusaCrawl::for_single_dir(extracted_dir.to_path_buf(), ignores);
+    crawl_spec.crawl_paths().await
+  }
+
   async fn execute_medusa_zip(
     input_files: Vec<lib::FileSource>,
     parallelism: lib::zip::Parallelism,
@@ -155,7 +163,14 @@ mod parallel_merge {
       /* FIXME: assigning `_` to the second arg of this tuple will destroy the
        * extract dir, which is only a silent error producing an empty file!!!
        * AWFUL UX!!! */
-      let (input_files, _tmp_extract_dir) = extract_example_zip(&target).unwrap();
+      let (input_files, extracted_dir) = extract_example_zip(&target).unwrap();
+      group.bench_function(
+        BenchmarkId::new(&id, "<crawling the extracted contents>"),
+        |b| {
+          b.to_async(&rt)
+            .iter(|| execute_medusa_crawl(extracted_dir.path()))
+        },
+      );
 
       /* Run the parallel implementation. */
       let parallelism = lib::zip::Parallelism::ParallelMerge;
diff --git a/lib/src/crawl.rs b/lib/src/crawl.rs
index 4cd3960..ef5be61 100644
--- a/lib/src/crawl.rs
+++ b/lib/src/crawl.rs
@@ -69,10 +69,12 @@ impl ResolvedPath {
     }
   }
 
-  pub fn from_path(path: PathBuf) -> Self {
+  pub(crate) fn from_path_and_root(relative_path: PathBuf, root: &Path) -> Self {
+    assert!(relative_path.is_relative());
+    assert!(root.is_absolute());
     Self {
-      unresolved_path: path.clone(),
-      resolved_path: path,
+      resolved_path: root.join(&relative_path),
+      unresolved_path: relative_path,
     }
   }
 
@@ -285,21 +287,51 @@ impl Input {
 pub struct MedusaCrawl {
   pub paths_to_crawl: Vec<PathBuf>,
   pub ignores: Ignores,
+  pub cwd: Option<PathBuf>,
+}
+
+impl Default for MedusaCrawl {
+  fn default() -> Self {
+    Self {
+      paths_to_crawl: vec![PathBuf::from(".")],
+      ignores: Ignores::default(),
+      cwd: None,
+    }
+  }
 }
 
 impl MedusaCrawl {
+  pub fn for_single_dir(dir: PathBuf, ignores: Ignores) -> Self {
+    Self {
+      paths_to_crawl: vec![PathBuf::from(".")],
+      ignores,
+      cwd: Some(dir),
+    }
+  }
+
   pub async fn crawl_paths(self) -> Result<CrawlResult, MedusaCrawlError> {
     let Self {
       paths_to_crawl,
       ignores,
+      cwd,
     } = self;
-    let cwd = env::current_dir()?;
+    let cwd: PathBuf = cwd.map(Ok).unwrap_or_else(env::current_dir)?;
+
+    /* Validate all paths in a rayon blast before touching the filesystem. */
+    paths_to_crawl
+      .par_iter()
+      .map(|p| {
+        if p.is_absolute() {
+          Err(MedusaCrawlFormatError::PathWasAbsolute(p.clone()))
+        } else {
+          Ok(())
+        }
+      })
+      .collect::<Result<(), MedusaCrawlFormatError>>()?;
 
-    let results: Vec<CrawlResult> = try_join_all(
-      paths_to_crawl
-        .into_iter()
-        .map(|path| Input::Path(ResolvedPath::from_path(path)).crawl_single(&ignores)),
-    )
+    let results: Vec<CrawlResult> = try_join_all(paths_to_crawl.into_iter().map(|relative_path| {
+      Input::Path(ResolvedPath::from_path_and_root(relative_path, &cwd)).crawl_single(&ignores)
+    }))
     .await?;
     let mut result = CrawlResult::merge(results);
 
diff --git a/py/medusa_zip/crawl.pyi b/py/medusa_zip/crawl.pyi
index 277b7e8..51e0007 100644
--- a/py/medusa_zip/crawl.pyi
+++ b/py/medusa_zip/crawl.pyi
@@ -5,6 +5,8 @@
 #
 # Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (see LICENSE).
 
+# FIXME: remove Optional and Union for future annotations!
+
 from pathlib import Path
 from typing import Iterable, Optional, Union
 
@@ -51,14 +53,19 @@ class MedusaCrawl:
     self,
     paths_to_crawl: Iterable[Union[str, Path]],
     ignores: Optional[Ignores] = None,
+    cwd: Optional[Union[str, Path]] = None,
   ) -> None:
     ...
 
   @property
   def paths_to_crawl(self) -> Iterable[Path]: ...
+
   @property
   def ignores(self) -> Ignores: ...
 
+  @property
+  def cwd(self) -> Optional[Path]: ...
+
   async def crawl_paths(self) -> CrawlResult: ...
 
   def crawl_paths_sync(self) -> CrawlResult: ...
diff --git a/py/src/crawl.rs b/py/src/crawl.rs
index f95987d..87c6b98 100644
--- a/py/src/crawl.rs
+++ b/py/src/crawl.rs
@@ -202,24 +202,30 @@ impl From<lib_crawl::Ignores> for Ignores {
 #[pyclass]
 #[derive(Clone)]
 pub struct MedusaCrawl {
+  /* FIXME: make these both get and set!!! */
   #[pyo3(get)]
   pub paths_to_crawl: Vec<PathBuf>,
   #[pyo3(get)]
   pub ignores: Ignores,
+  #[pyo3(get)]
+  pub cwd: Option<PathBuf>,
 }
 
 #[pymethods]
 impl MedusaCrawl {
   #[new]
-  fn new(paths_to_crawl: &PyAny, ignores: Option<Ignores>) -> PyResult<Self> {
+  #[pyo3(signature = (paths_to_crawl, ignores = None, cwd = None))]
+  fn new(paths_to_crawl: &PyAny, ignores: Option<Ignores>, cwd: Option<&PyAny>) -> PyResult<Self> {
     let ignores = ignores.unwrap_or_default();
     let paths_to_crawl: Vec<PathBuf> = paths_to_crawl
       .iter()?
       .map(|p| p.and_then(PyAny::extract::<PathBuf>))
       .collect::<PyResult<_>>()?;
+    let cwd = cwd.map(|cwd| PyAny::extract::<PathBuf>(cwd)).transpose()?;
     Ok(Self {
       paths_to_crawl,
       ignores,
+      cwd,
     })
   }
 
@@ -227,12 +233,14 @@ impl MedusaCrawl {
     let Self {
       paths_to_crawl,
       ignores,
+      cwd,
     } = self;
     let paths_to_crawl = repr(py, paths_to_crawl.clone())?;
     let ignores = repr(py, ignores.clone())?;
+    let cwd = repr(py, cwd.clone())?;
     Ok(format!(
-      "MedusaCrawl(paths_to_crawl={}, ignores={})",
-      paths_to_crawl, ignores
+      "MedusaCrawl(paths_to_crawl={}, ignores={}, cwd={})",
+      paths_to_crawl, ignores, cwd,
     ))
   }
 
@@ -270,10 +278,12 @@ impl From<MedusaCrawl> for lib_crawl::MedusaCrawl {
     let MedusaCrawl {
       paths_to_crawl,
       ignores,
+      cwd,
     } = x;
     Self {
       paths_to_crawl,
       ignores: ignores.into(),
+      cwd,
     }
   }
 }