diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index b1dad2bae..349f702f8 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -5,3 +5,4 @@ __pycache__
 *.elf
 *.fbi
 doc/manual/_build
+/build
diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e69de29bb
diff --git a/artiq/__init__.py b/artiq/__init__.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e69de29bb
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..1e7e6894e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+#!/usr/bin/python
+# -*- coding: utf8 -*-
+
+from setuptools import setup, find_packages
+from glob import glob
+
+setup(
+        name = "artiq",
+        version = "0.0+dev",
+        author = u"Sébastien Bourdeauducq & NIST Ion Storage Group",
+        author_email = "sb@m-labs.hk",
+        url = "http://github.com/m-labs/artiq/",
+        description = "Experiment Control",
+        long_description = open("README.rst").read(),
+        license = "BSD",
+        install_requires = [
+            "numpy", "scipy", "sphinx", "numpydoc", "nose",
+        ],
+        extras_require = {},
+        dependency_links = [],
+        packages = find_packages(),
+        namespace_packages = [],
+        test_suite = "nose.collector",
+        include_package_data = True,
+        ext_modules=[],
+        )