diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
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+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+# Contributing
+
+## Dependencies
+- Python >=3.9
+- [Poetry](https://python-poetry.org/docs/master/#installing-with-the-official-installer)
+
+## Setup
+* Install Python dependencies with poetry
+```shell
+poetry install
+```
+
+- Set up the database
+```shell
+poetry run python manage.py migrate
+```
+
+- Start the API server
+```shell
+poetry run python manage.py runserver
+```
+
+### Updating the database
+
+If you modify any database models (`models.py`), you'll need to run the following to update the database:
+```shell
+poetry run python manage.py makemigrations
+poetry run python manage.py migrate
+```
+
+### Linting
+
+```shell
+poetry run mypy
+poetry run black .
+```
diff --git a/LICENSE.md b/LICENSE
similarity index 100%
rename from LICENSE.md
rename to LICENSE
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index d6b33c1..e072a26 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,3 +1,11 @@
 # Frogress
 
 An API for storing/retrieving decompilation progress
+
+## Development
+For those interested in contributing to frogress's development, please see [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md).
+
+## Usage
+The API will be hosted at https://progress.deco.mp. Usage guide coming soon.
+
+TODO: add example curl commands as well as code snippets / CSV parser for existing format
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