diff --git a/docs/contributing.rst b/docs/contributing.rst
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@@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
+.. _contributing:
+
+Contributing
+============
+
+Datasette is an open source project. We welcome contributions!
+
+This document describes how to contribute to Datasette core. You can also contribute to the wider Datasette ecosystem by creating new :ref:`plugins`.
+
+Setting up a development environment
+------------------------------------
+
+If you have Python 3.5 or higher installed on your computer (on OS X the easiest way to do this `is using homebrew <https://docs.python-guide.org/starting/install3/osx/>`__) you can install an editable copy of Datasette using the following steps.
+
+If you want to use GitHub to publish your changes, first `create a fork of datasette <https://github.com/simonw/datasette/fork>`__ under your own GitHub account.
+
+Now clone that repository somewhere on your computer::
+
+    git clone git@github.com:YOURNAME/datasette
+
+If you just want to get started without creating your own fork, you can do this instead::
+
+    git clone git@github.com:simonw/datasette
+
+The next step is to create a virtual environment for your project and use it to install Datasette's dependencies::
+
+    cd datasette
+    # Create a virtual environment in venv/
+    python3 -mvenv venv
+    # Install Datasette and its testing dependencies
+    pip install -e .[test]
+
+That last line does most of the work: ``pip install -e`` means "install this package in a way that allows me to edit the source code in place". The ``.[test]`` option means "use the setup.py in this directory and install the optional testing dependencies as well".
+
+Once you have done this, you can run the Datasette unit tests from inside your ``datasette/`` directory using `pytest <https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/>`__ like so::
+
+    pytest
+
+To run Datasette itself, just type ``datasette``.
+
+You're going to need at least one SQLite database. An easy way to get started is to use the fixtures database that Datasette uses for its own tests.
+
+You can create a copy of that database by running this command::
+
+    python tests/fixtures.py fixtures.db
+
+Now you can run Datasette against the new fixtures database like so::
+
+    datasette fixtures.db
+
+This will start a server at ``http://127.0.0.1:8001/``.
+
+Any changes you make in the ``datasette/templates`` or ``datasette/static`` folder will be picked up immediately (though you may need to do a force-refresh in your browser to see changes to CSS or JavaScript).
+
+If you want to change Datasette's Python code you can use the ``--reload`` option to cause Datasette to automatically reload any time the underlying code changes::
+
+    datasette --reload fixtures.db
+
+You can also use the ``fixtures.py`` script to recreate the testing version of ``metadata.json`` used by the unit tests. To do that::
+
+    python tests/fixtures.py fixtures.db fixtures-metadata.json
+
+(You may need to delete ``fixtures.db`` before running this command.)
+
+Then run Datasette like this::
+
+    datasette fixtures.db -m fixtures-metadata.json
diff --git a/docs/index.rst b/docs/index.rst
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--- a/docs/index.rst
+++ b/docs/index.rst
@@ -31,6 +31,7 @@ Contents
    introspection
    custom_templates
    plugins
+   contributing
    changelog
 
 .. _Zeit Now: https://zeit.co/now