diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..80f9f69c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+# rust-g
+
+rust-g (pronounced rusty-g) is a library which offloads certain expensive or difficult
+tasks from BYOND.
+
+This library is currently used in the [tgstation] codebase, and is required for it to run.
+A pre-compiled DLL version can be found in the repo root, but you can build your own from
+this repo at your preference.
+
+## Compiling
+
+rust-g is build with [Rust] as you might have guessed from the name. Install rust using
+[rustup] in order to build rust-g using [cargo] (as a release build, for speed):
+
+    cargo build --release
+
+All dependencies will automatically be downloaded and compiled. rust-g should be compilable on
+both Rust stable and nightly.
+
+You will find your `.so` or `.dll` in `targets/release`. More advanced users can
+cross-compile rust-g using cargo (but this is beyond the scope of a README).
+
+## Installing
+
+rust-g needs to be installed to your BYOND bin folder (to run in trusted mode), or
+the root of your repository (next to your `.dmb`).
+
+Linux users should symlink or rename `librust_g.so` to `rust_g` in order for BYOND
+to correctly resolve the library.
+
+
+[tgstation]: https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation
+[Rust]: https://rust-lang.org
+[cargo]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/
+[rustup]: https://rustup.rs/