diff --git a/packages/@aws-cdk/integ-runner/README.md b/packages/@aws-cdk/integ-runner/README.md
index 3f983273a4a1e..db79cf866b9ca 100644
--- a/packages/@aws-cdk/integ-runner/README.md
+++ b/packages/@aws-cdk/integ-runner/README.md
@@ -19,6 +19,13 @@
 
 ## Overview
 
+This tool has been created to be used initially by this repo (aws/aws-cdk). Long term the goal is
+for this tool to be a general tool that can be used for running CDK integration tests. We are
+publishing this tool so that it can be used by the community and we would love to receive feedback
+on use cases that the tool should support, or issues that prevent the tool from being used in your
+library.
+
+This tool is meant to be used with the [integ-tests](https://github.com/aws/aws-cdk/tree/master/packages/%40aws-cdk/integ-tests) library.
 
 ## Usage
 
diff --git a/packages/@aws-cdk/integ-runner/lib/runner/runner-base.ts b/packages/@aws-cdk/integ-runner/lib/runner/runner-base.ts
index 18b8a3c6e9f64..6ebdce2eea40c 100644
--- a/packages/@aws-cdk/integ-runner/lib/runner/runner-base.ts
+++ b/packages/@aws-cdk/integ-runner/lib/runner/runner-base.ts
@@ -129,8 +129,6 @@ export abstract class IntegRunner {
 
   protected readonly profile?: string;
 
-  protected readonly cdkExecutable: string;
-
   protected _destructiveChanges?: DestructiveChange[];
   private legacyContext?: Record<string, any>;
 
@@ -153,9 +151,7 @@ export abstract class IntegRunner {
     this.sourceFilePath = path.join(this.directory, parsed.base);
     this.cdkContextPath = path.join(this.directory, 'cdk.context.json');
 
-    this.cdkExecutable = require.resolve('aws-cdk/bin/cdk');
     this.cdk = options.cdk ?? new CdkCliWrapper({
-      cdkExecutable: this.cdkExecutable,
       directory: this.directory,
       env: {
         ...options.env,
diff --git a/packages/@aws-cdk/integ-runner/package.json b/packages/@aws-cdk/integ-runner/package.json
index 5f08391b5bf08..fdf44c3311b9a 100644
--- a/packages/@aws-cdk/integ-runner/package.json
+++ b/packages/@aws-cdk/integ-runner/package.json
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
   "name": "@aws-cdk/integ-runner",
   "description": "CDK Integration Testing Tool",
   "version": "0.0.0",
-  "private": true,
+  "private": false,
   "main": "lib/index.js",
   "types": "lib/index.d.ts",
   "bin": {
diff --git a/packages/cdk-cli-wrapper/lib/cdk-wrapper.ts b/packages/cdk-cli-wrapper/lib/cdk-wrapper.ts
index fd45c4ae0c07b..069673582f195 100644
--- a/packages/cdk-cli-wrapper/lib/cdk-wrapper.ts
+++ b/packages/cdk-cli-wrapper/lib/cdk-wrapper.ts
@@ -109,9 +109,9 @@ export class CdkCliWrapper implements ICdk {
     this.directory = options.directory;
     this.env = options.env;
     try {
-      this.cdk = options.cdkExecutable ?? require.resolve('aws-cdk/bin/cdk');
+      this.cdk = options.cdkExecutable ?? 'cdk';
     } catch (e) {
-      throw new Error(`could not resolve path to cdk executable: "${options.cdkExecutable}"`);
+      throw new Error(`could not resolve path to cdk executable: "${options.cdkExecutable ?? 'cdk'}"`);
     }
   }
 
diff --git a/packages/cdk-cli-wrapper/test/cdk-wrapper.test.ts b/packages/cdk-cli-wrapper/test/cdk-wrapper.test.ts
index c0d8f75195ea9..0a9d370426aae 100644
--- a/packages/cdk-cli-wrapper/test/cdk-wrapper.test.ts
+++ b/packages/cdk-cli-wrapper/test/cdk-wrapper.test.ts
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ test('default deploy', () => {
 
   // THEN
   expect(spawnSyncMock).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
-    expect.stringMatching(/aws-cdk\/bin\/cdk/),
+    expect.stringMatching(/cdk/),
     ['deploy', '--app', 'node bin/my-app.js', 'test-stack1'],
     expect.objectContaining({
       env: expect.anything(),
@@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ test('deploy with all arguments', () => {
 
   // THEN
   expect(spawnSyncMock).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
-    expect.stringMatching(/aws-cdk\/bin\/cdk/),
+    expect.stringMatching(/cdk/),
     expect.arrayContaining([
       'deploy',
       '--no-strict',
@@ -146,7 +146,7 @@ test('can parse boolean arguments', () => {
 
   // THEN
   expect(spawnSyncMock).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
-    expect.stringMatching(/aws-cdk\/bin\/cdk/),
+    expect.stringMatching(/cdk/),
     [
       'deploy',
       '--app',
@@ -179,7 +179,7 @@ test('can parse parameters', () => {
 
   // THEN
   expect(spawnSyncMock).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
-    expect.stringMatching(/aws-cdk\/bin\/cdk/),
+    expect.stringMatching(/cdk/),
     [
       'deploy',
       '--parameters', 'myparam=test',
@@ -211,7 +211,7 @@ test('can parse context', () => {
 
   // THEN
   expect(spawnSyncMock).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
-    expect.stringMatching(/aws-cdk\/bin\/cdk/),
+    expect.stringMatching(/cdk/),
     [
       'deploy',
       '--app',
@@ -243,7 +243,7 @@ test('can parse array arguments', () => {
 
   // THEN
   expect(spawnSyncMock).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
-    expect.stringMatching(/aws-cdk\/bin\/cdk/),
+    expect.stringMatching(/cdk/),
     [
       'deploy',
       '--notification-arns', 'arn:aws:us-east-1:1111111111:some:resource',
@@ -274,7 +274,7 @@ test('can provide additional environment', () => {
 
   // THEN
   expect(spawnSyncMock).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
-    expect.stringMatching(/aws-cdk\/bin\/cdk/),
+    expect.stringMatching(/cdk/),
     ['deploy', '--app', 'node bin/my-app.js', 'test-stack1'],
     expect.objectContaining({
       env: expect.objectContaining({
@@ -300,7 +300,7 @@ test('default synth', () => {
 
   // THEN
   expect(spawnSyncMock).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
-    expect.stringMatching(/aws-cdk\/bin\/cdk/),
+    expect.stringMatching(/cdk/),
     ['synth', '--app', 'node bin/my-app.js', 'test-stack1'],
     expect.objectContaining({
       env: expect.objectContaining({
@@ -326,7 +326,7 @@ test('synth arguments', () => {
 
   // THEN
   expect(spawnSyncMock).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
-    expect.stringMatching(/aws-cdk\/bin\/cdk/),
+    expect.stringMatching(/cdk/),
     ['destroy', '--app', 'node bin/my-app.js', 'test-stack1'],
     expect.objectContaining({
       env: expect.objectContaining({
@@ -354,7 +354,7 @@ test('destroy arguments', () => {
 
   // THEN
   expect(spawnSyncMock).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
-    expect.stringMatching(/aws-cdk\/bin\/cdk/),
+    expect.stringMatching(/cdk/),
     ['destroy', '--force', '--no-exclusively', '--app', 'node bin/my-app.js', 'test-stack1'],
     expect.objectContaining({
       env: expect.objectContaining({
@@ -380,7 +380,7 @@ test('default ls', () => {
 
   // THEN
   expect(spawnSyncMock).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
-    expect.stringMatching(/aws-cdk\/bin\/cdk/),
+    expect.stringMatching(/cdk/),
     ['ls', '--app', 'node bin/my-app.js', '*'],
     expect.objectContaining({
       env: expect.objectContaining({
@@ -415,7 +415,7 @@ test('ls arguments', () => {
 
   // THEN
   expect(spawnSyncMock).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
-    expect.stringMatching(/aws-cdk\/bin\/cdk/),
+    expect.stringMatching(/cdk/),
     ['ls', '--long', '--app', 'node bin/my-app.js', '*'],
     expect.objectContaining({
       env: expect.objectContaining({