diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 9c8c22a..965ca2a 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1 +1,10 @@
 # Study Bank
+
+## Development
+- clone the git repo
+- create `secret.py` based on `secret.sample`
+- register an OAuth app with Ion for authentication (client-type = confidential, auth-grant-type = authorization-code)
+- copy the client_id and client_secret values from Ion to `secret.py`
+- edit `settings.py` so that `MEDIA_ROOT` and `STATIC_ROOT` point to your desired directories (you also need to create these directories)
+- uploaded documents will be stored in the media directory, and static files will be collected to the static directory
+- django will not serve any files in either of these directories, so you need to make sure your web server will