diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
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--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -1 +1,33 @@
+The issue tracker
+=================
 
+If you find a bug or see a problem with PyCIRCLean, please open an issue in the Github
+repo. We'll do our best to respond as quickly as possible. Also, feel free to contribute a solution
+to any of the open issues - we'll do our best to review your pull request in a timely manner.
+This project is in active development, so any contributions are welcome!
+
+
+Setting up a dev environment
+============================
+
+* First, you'll want to get a local copy of PyCIRCLean. If you'd like to make a pull request
+with your changes at some point, you should fork the project on github, and then `git clone`
+your fork.
+
+* To install the project's dependencies, you can run `python setup.py install`. Alternatively,
+you can use `pip install dev-requirements.txt` to ensure you download any testing dependencies as well.
+We recommend that you use a virtualenv when installing dependencies. Note: python-magic has a non-Python
+dependency, libmagic. It is typically included in Linux distributions, but you might have to install
+it with homebrew (`brew install libmagic`) on macOS.
+
+* Some of the example scripts have additional dependencies for handling various filetypes. You'll have to
+install these seperately if you want to try out the examples or modify them for your own purposes.
+Please open an issue if you have suggestions of good alternatives for the libraries we use for file handling
+or if you have an example you'd like to contribute.
+
+
+Running the tests
+=================
+
+* Running the tests is easy. First, make sure you've installed the project and testing dependencies.
+Then, run `python -m pytest` or just `pytest` in the top level or /tests directory.