diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b8842c9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+# webterm
+web terminal based on xterm.js in rust
+
+![Screenshot](screenshots/screenshot.png)
+
+# Is it any good?
+[Yes.](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3067434)
+
+# How does it work?
+
+There is a rust backend based [Actix], consisting of two actors:
+* `Websocket` implements a websocket that speaks the [Terminado] protocol
+* `Terminal` handles communication to a child spawned on a PTY using [tokio-pty-process].
+
+The frontend is a static HTML page served by [actix-web][Actix] providing an [xterm.js] UI.
+
+[Actix]: https://actix.rs
+[Terminado]: https://github.com/jupyter/terminado
+[tokio-pty-process]: https://crates.io/crates/tokio-pty-process
+[xterm.js]: https://xtermjs.org/
diff --git a/screenshots/screenshot.png b/screenshots/screenshot.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ce13130
Binary files /dev/null and b/screenshots/screenshot.png differ