diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
new file mode 100644
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+# Contributing to Gloo
+We want to make contributing to this project as easy and transparent as
+possible.
+
+## Pull Requests
+We actively welcome your pull requests.
+
+1. Fork the repo and create your branch from `master`.
+2. If you've added code that should be tested, add tests.
+3. If you've changed APIs, update the documentation.
+4. Ensure the test suite passes.
+5. Make sure your code lints.
+6. If you haven't already, complete the Contributor License Agreement ("CLA").
+
+## Contributor License Agreement ("CLA")
+In order to accept your pull request, we need you to submit a CLA. You only need
+to do this once to work on any of Facebook's open source projects.
+
+Complete your CLA here: <https://code.facebook.com/cla>
+
+## Issues
+We use GitHub issues to track public bugs. Please ensure your description is
+clear and has sufficient instructions to be able to reproduce the issue.
+
+Facebook has a [bounty program](https://www.facebook.com/whitehat/) for the safe
+disclosure of security bugs. In those cases, please go through the process
+outlined on that page and do not file a public issue.
+
+## Coding Style
+* 2 spaces for indentation rather than tabs
+* 80 character line length
+* camelCase instead of snake_case
+
+## License
+By contributing to Gloo, you agree that your contributions will be licensed
+under the LICENSE file in the root directory of this source tree.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index c28ef6727..53faad562 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,3 +1,52 @@
-# gloo
+# Gloo
+Gloo is a collective communications library. It comes with a number of
+collective algorithms useful for machine learning applications. These
+include a barrier, broadcast, and allreduce.
 
-TODO
+Transport of data between participating machines is abstracted so that
+IP can be used at all times, or InifiniBand (or RoCE) when available.
+
+Where applicable, algorithms have an implementation that works with
+system memory buffers, and one that works with NVIDIA GPU memory
+buffers. In the latter case, if the InfiniBand transport is used,
+GPUDirect can be used to accelerate cross machine GPU-to-GPU memory
+transfers.
+
+## Requirements
+Gloo is built to run on Linux and has no hard dependencies other than libc.
+
+Optional dependencies are:
+* cuda -- for CUDA algorithms, tests, and benchmark
+* googletest -- to build and run tests
+* eigen -- for fast floating point routines
+* hiredis -- for coordinating machine rendezvous through Redis
+
+## Usage
+You can build Gloo using CMake.
+
+Since it is a library, it is most convenient to vendor it in your own
+project and include the project root in your own CMake configuration.
+
+For standalone builds (e.g. to run tests or benchmarks), first
+populate the `third-party` directory with a few dependencies to
+compile both the tests and the benchmark tool:
+
+``` shell
+cd third-party
+./fetch.sh
+```
+
+Then, to build:
+
+``` shell
+mkdir build
+cd build
+cmake ../ -DBUILD_TEST=1 -DBUILD_BENCHMARK=1
+ls -l gloo/gloo_{test,benchmark}
+```
+
+## Documentation
+Please refer to [docs/](docs/) for detailed documentation.
+
+## License
+Gloo is BSD-licensed. We also provide an additional patent grant.
diff --git a/docs/latency.md b/docs/latency.md
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+++ b/docs/latency.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+# Latency optimizations
+TBD
diff --git a/docs/overview.md b/docs/overview.md
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+++ b/docs/overview.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+# Overview
+TBD
diff --git a/docs/transport.md b/docs/transport.md
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+++ b/docs/transport.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+# Transport structure
+TBD