diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index f53bca5346..0019f9527b 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -2,7 +2,87 @@
 
 [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.com/propelml/deno.svg?token=eWz4oGVxypBGsz78gdKp&branch=master)](https://travis-ci.com/propelml/deno)
 
-An opinionated JavaScript runtime
+A JavaScript runtime using V8 6.8 and Go.
+
+* Supports TypeScript 2.8 out of the box.
+
+* No package.json, no npm. Not backwards compatible with Node.
+
+* imports reference source code URLs only.
+	```
+  import { test } from "https://unpkg.com/deno_testing@0.0.5/testing.ts"
+  import { log } from "./util.ts"
+	```
+
+* File system and network access can be controlled in order to run sandboxed
+  code. Defaults to read-only file system access.
+
+* Single executable:
+	```
+	> ls -lh deno
+	-rwxrwxr-x 1 ryan ryan 55M May 28 23:46 deno
+	> ldd deno
+		linux-vdso.so.1 =>  (0x00007ffc6797a000)
+		libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f104fa47000)
+		libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00007f104f6c5000)
+		libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007f104f3bc000)
+		libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007f104f1a6000)
+		libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f104eddc000)
+		/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f104fc64000)
+	>
+	```
+
+No docs yet. For the public API see
+https://github.com/ry/deno/blob/master/deno.d.ts
+
+And examples are around here:
+https://github.com/ry/deno/blob/master/testdata/004_set_timeout.ts
+
+Roadmap is here: https://github.com/ry/deno/blob/master/TODO.txt
+
+
+## Compile instructions
+
+I will release binaries at some point but for now you have to build it
+yourself.
+
+You need Protobuf 3. On Linux this might work:
+```
+cd ~
+wget https://github.com/google/protobuf/releases/download/v3.1.0/protoc-3.1.0-linux-x86_64.zip
+unzip protoc-3.1.0-linux-x86_64.zip
+export PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH
+```
+
+Then you need `protoc-gen-go` and `go-bindata` and other deps:
+```
+go get -u github.com/golang/protobuf/protoc-gen-go
+go get -u github.com/jteeuwen/go-bindata/...
+go get -u ./...
+```
+
+Installing `v8worker2` is time consuming, because it requires building V8. It
+may take about 30 minutes:
+```
+go get -u github.com/ry/v8worker2
+cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/ry/v8worker2
+./build.py --use_ccache
+```
+
+You might also need Node and Yarn.
+
+Finally the dependencies are installed.
+
+Now you can build deno and run it:
+```
+> make
+[redacted]
+> ./deno testdata/001_hello.js
+Hello World
+>
+```
+
+## make commands
 
 ```bash
 make deno # Builds the deno executable
@@ -13,3 +93,4 @@ make fmt # Formats the code.
 
 make clean # Cleans the build.
 ```
+