diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2ba9d22
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+/dist
+/webapp
+/webapp.asar
+/packages
+/deploys
+/node_modules
diff --git a/README b/README
index 3786bb1..ffdd78a 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -5,3 +5,72 @@ This is *not* where the source for Riot desktop lives... yet. As of now,
 it still lives in the main riot-web repo: https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web
 
 This is an experimental split-out of the Riot desktop code from the main repo.
+
+Fetching Riot
+=============
+Since this package is just the Electron wrapper for Riot, it doesn't contain any of the Riot code,
+so the first step is to get a working copy of Riot. There are a few ways of doing this:
+
+```
+# Fetch the prebuilt release Riot package from the riot.im GitHub releases page. The version
+# fetched will be the same as the local riot-desktop package.
+yarn run fetch --noverify
+```
+
+...or if you'd like to use GPG to verify the downloaded package:
+```
+# Fetch the Riot public key from the riot.im web server over a secure connection and import
+# it into your local GPG keychain (you'll need GPG installed). You only need to to do this
+# once.
+yarn run fetch --importkey
+# Fetch the package and verify the signature
+yarn run fetch
+```
+
+...or either of the above, but fetching a specific version of Riot:
+```
+# Fetch the prebuilt release Riot package from the riot.im GitHub releases page. The version
+# fetched will be the same as the local riot-desktop package.
+yarn run fetch --noverify v1.5.6
+```
+
+If you only want to run the app locally and don't need to build packages, you can
+provide the `webapp` directory directly:
+```
+# Assuming you've checked out and built a copy of riot-web in ../riot-web
+ln -s ../riot-web/webapp ./
+```
+
+[TODO: add support for fetching develop builds, arbitrary URLs and arbitrary paths]
+
+
+Building
+========
+Now you have a copy of Riot, you're ready to build packages. If you'd just like to
+run Riot locally, skip to the next section.
+
+```
+yarn run build
+```
+This will do a couple of things:
+ * Run the `setversion` script to set the local package version to match whatever
+   version of Riot you installed above.
+ * Run electron-builder to build a package. The package built will match the operating system
+   you're running the build process on.
+
+You can also build using docker, which will always produce the linux package:
+```
+yarn run dockerbuild
+```
+
+After running, the packages should be in `dist/`.
+
+Starting
+========
+If you'd just like to run the electron app locally for development:
+```
+# Install electron - we don't normally need electron itself as it's provided
+# by electron-builder when building packages
+yarn add electron
+yarn start
+```
diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index 73e14d4..4131463 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -14,10 +14,10 @@
   "scripts": {
     "mkdirs": "mkdirp packages deploys",
     "fetch": "yarn run mkdirs && node scripts/fetch-package.js",
-    "check": "node scripts/check-webapp.js",
+    "setversion": "node scripts/set-version.js",
     "start": "electron .",
     "lint": "eslint src/",
-    "build": "yarn run check && electron-builder",
+    "build": "yarn run setversion && electron-builder",
     "clean": "rimraf webapp.asar dist packages deploys"
   },
   "dependencies": {
diff --git a/scripts/check-webapp.js b/scripts/check-webapp.js
deleted file mode 100755
index 8cbabb9..0000000
--- a/scripts/check-webapp.js
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,15 +0,0 @@
-#!/usr/bin/env node
-
-const fs = require('fs').promises;
-
-async function main() {
-    try {
-        const webappDir = await fs.stat('webapp.asar');
-        return 0;
-    } catch (e) {
-        console.log("No 'webapp.asar' found. Run 'yarn run fetch'");
-        return 1;
-    }
-}
-
-main().then((ret) => process.exit(ret));
diff --git a/scripts/dockerbuild.sh b/scripts/dockerbuild.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..19b22b9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/dockerbuild.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+# Taken from https://www.electron.build/multi-platform-build#docker
+docker run --rm -ti \
+ --env-file <(env | grep -iE 'DEBUG|NODE_|ELECTRON_|YARN_|NPM_|CI|CIRCLE|TRAVIS_TAG|TRAVIS|TRAVIS_REPO_|TRAVIS_BUILD_|TRAVIS_BRANCH|TRAVIS_PULL_REQUEST_|APPVEYOR_|CSC_|GH_|GITHUB_|BT_|AWS_|STRIP|BUILD_') \
+ --env ELECTRON_CACHE="/root/.cache/electron" \
+ --env ELECTRON_BUILDER_CACHE="/root/.cache/electron-builder" \
+ -v ${PWD}:/project \
+ -v ${PWD##*/}-node-modules:/project/node_modules \
+ -v ~/.cache/electron:/root/.cache/electron \
+ -v ~/.cache/electron-builder:/root/.cache/electron-builder \
+ electronuserland/builder yarn run build
diff --git a/scripts/set-version.js b/scripts/set-version.js
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..5786d3c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/set-version.js
@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env node
+
+/*
+ * Checks for the pre3sence of a webapp, inspects its version and sets the
+ * version metadata of the package to match.
+ */
+
+const fs = require('fs').promises;
+const asar = require('asar');
+const child_process = require('child_process');
+
+async function main() {
+    try {
+        const webappDir = await fs.stat('webapp.asar');
+    } catch (e) {
+        console.log("No 'webapp.asar' found. Run 'yarn run fetch'");
+        return 1;
+    }
+
+    const ver = asar.extractFile('webapp.asar', 'version').toString().trim();
+    await new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
+        child_process.execFile('yarn', [
+            'version',
+            '-s',
+            '--no-git-tag-version', // This also means "don't commit to git" as it turns out
+            '--new-version',
+            ver,
+        ], (err) => {
+            if (err) {
+                reject(err);
+            } else {
+                resolve();
+            }
+        });
+    });
+    console.log("Version set to " + ver);
+}
+
+main().then((ret) => process.exit(ret));