diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 38ff0148b60009b87b49af54556623f27ffa3a3d..46bd8963633216d511e314dde2a503dd502f5b3d 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1 +1,36 @@
-Architecture for Historical Manuscripts Indexing
\ No newline at end of file
+Backend for Historical Manuscripts Indexing
+===========================================
+
+[![pipeline status](https://gitlab.com/arkindex/backend/badges/master/pipeline.svg)](https://gitlab.com/arkindex/backend/commits/master)
+
+Requirements:
+
+* git
+* make
+* Python 3.5+
+* virtualenv
+* [virtualenvwrapper](https://virtualenvwrapper.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)
+
+
+Dev Setup
+---------
+
+```
+git clone git@gitlab.com:arkindex/backend.git
+mkvirtualenv -p /usr/bin/python3 ark
+cd backend
+pip install -e .[test]
+```
+
+When the [architecture](https://gitlab.com/arkindex/architecture) is running locally to provide required services:
+
+```
+manage.py migrate
+manage.py createsuperuser
+```
+
+When the [iiif-manifests](https://gitlab.com/kermorvant/iiif-manifests) are cloned locally:
+
+```
+manage.py import_manifest <MANIFEST_FILES>
+```