diff --git a/tutor/templates/build/openedx/bin/pip-install-mounted b/tutor/templates/build/openedx/bin/pip-install-mounted
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..f02f7bc374
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tutor/templates/build/openedx/bin/pip-install-mounted
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+# Whenever edx-platform or installable packages (e.g., xblocks) are mounted,
+# during the image build, they are copied over to container and installed. This
+# results in egg_info generation for the mounted directories. However, the
+# egg_info is not carried over to host. When the containers are launched, the
+# host directories without egg_info are mounted on runtime and disappear from
+# pip list. To fix this, we `pip install` edx-platform and every mounted
+# package ("/mnt/*") again, re-generating the egg-infos. This script is called
+# during LMS initialization, and can also be called separately by users.
+
+set -eu
+set -x # Echo out executed lines
+
+for mounted_dir in /openedx/edx-platform /mnt/*; do
+    if [ -f $mounted_dir/setup.py ] && ! ls $mounted_dir/*.egg-info >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
+        echo "Unable to locate egg-info in $mounted_dir -- generating now."
+        pip install -e $mounted_dir
+    fi
+done
+
+set +x
diff --git a/tutor/templates/jobs/init/mounted-directories.sh b/tutor/templates/jobs/init/mounted-directories.sh
index c3343c69f3..07b626c553 100644
--- a/tutor/templates/jobs/init/mounted-directories.sh
+++ b/tutor/templates/jobs/init/mounted-directories.sh
@@ -1,29 +1,15 @@
-# The initialization job contains various re-install operations needed to be done
-# on mounted directories (edx-platform, /mnt/*xblock, /mnt/<edx-ora, search, enterprise>)
+# The initialization job contains various re-install and asset-symlinking
+# operations needed to be done on mounted directories (edx-platform,
+# /mnt/*xblock, /mnt/<edx-ora, search, enterprise>)
 
 echo "Performing additional setup for bind-mounted directories."
 set -x # Echo out executed lines
 
-cd /openedx/edx-platform || exit 1
+cd /openedx/edx-platform || exit 1  # Fail early if edx-platform is missing
 
-# Whenever edx-platform or installable packages (e.g., xblocks) are mounted,
-# during the image build, they are copied over to container and installed. This
-# results in egg_info generation for the mounted directories. However, the
-# egg_info is not carried over to host. When the containers are launched, the
-# host directories without egg_info are mounted on runtime and disappear from
-# pip list. To fix this, we `pip install` edx-platform (".") and every mounted
-# package ("./mnt/*") again, re-generating the egg-infos.
-for mounted_dir in . /mnt/*; do
-    if [ -f $mounted_dir/setup.py ] && ! ls $mounted_dir/*.egg-info >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
-        echo "Unable to locate egg-info in $mounted_dir -- generating now."
-        pip install -e $mounted_dir
-    fi
-done
+pip-install-mounted
 
-# The same problem exists for edx-platform's compiled frontend assets, but recompiling
-# them is very slow. So, instead of re-compiling, we create symlinks to an alternate
-# directory in which we expect them to have been cached (/openedx/assets).
 ln-assets /openedx/assets /openedx/edx-platform
 
-set -x
+set +x
 echo "Done setting up bind-mounted directories."