diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 25f8430..f8979ec 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -8,3 +8,74 @@ go-docappender provides a Go API for append-only Elasticsearch document indexing
 
 This software is licensed under the [Apache 2 license](https://github.com/elastic/go-docappender/blob/main/LICENSE).
 
+## Design
+
+`go-docappender` is an evolution of the [Elastic APM Server](https://github.com/elastic/apm-server) Elasticsearch output,
+and was formerly known as `modelindexer`.
+
+Prior to 8.0, APM Server used the libbeat Elasticsearch output. 8.0 introduced a new output called "modelindexer", which
+was coupled to the APM Server event data model and optimised for APM Server's usage. From 8.0 until 8.5, modelindexer
+processed events synchronously and used mutexes for synchronized writes to the cache. This worked well, but didn't seem
+to scale well on bigger instances with more CPUs.
+
+```mermaid
+flowchart LR;
+    subgraph Goroutine
+        Flush;
+    end
+    AgentA & AgentB-->Handler;
+    subgraph Intake
+    Handler<-->|semaphore|Decode
+    Decode-->Batch;
+    end
+    subgraph ModelIndexer
+    Available-.->Active;
+    Batch-->Active;
+    Active<-->|mutex|Cache;
+    end
+    Cache-->|FullOrTimer|Flush;
+
+    Flush-->|bulk|ES[(Elasticsearch)];
+    Flush-->|done|Available;
+```
+
+In APM Server 8.6.0, modelindexer was redesigned to accept events asynchronously, and run one or more "active indexers",
+which would each pull events from an in-memory queue and (by default) compress them and write them to a buffer. This
+approach reduced lock contention, and allowed for automatically scaling the number of active indexers up and down based
+on queue utilisation, with an upper bound based on the available memory.
+
+```mermaid
+flowchart LR;
+    subgraph Goroutine11
+        Flush1(Flush);
+    end
+    subgraph Goroutine22
+        Flush2(Flush);
+    end
+    AgentA & AgentB-->Handler;
+    subgraph Intake
+    Handler<-->|semaphore|Decode
+    Decode-->Batch;
+    end
+    subgraph ModelIndexer
+    Batch-->Buffer;
+    Available;
+        subgraph Goroutine1
+            Active1(Active);
+            Active1(Active)<-->Cache1(Cache);
+            Cache1(Cache)-->|FullOrTimer|Flush1(Flush);
+        end
+        subgraph Goroutine2
+            Active2(Active);
+            Active2(Active)<-->Cache2(Cache);
+            Cache2(Cache)-->|FullOrTimer|Flush2(Flush);
+        end
+        subgraph Channel
+            Buffer-->Active1(Active) & Active2(Active);
+        end
+        Available-.->Active1(Active) & Active2(Active);
+    end
+
+    Flush1(Flush) & Flush2(Flush)-->|bulk|ES[(Elasticsearch)];
+    Flush1(Flush) & Flush2(Flush)-->|done|Available;
+```