diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index ee6694ae..e11c3820 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,21 +1,50 @@
-# dagger: the devops superglu, by the creators of docker
+# Dagger: the devops superglu, by the creators of docker
 
-Dagger is an automation platform that lets software teams bind all their tools and infrastructure together into a unified supply chain.
+Dagger is a scripting environment for automating the delivery of your application to the cloud,
+from code to production.
 
-Thanks to its vast catalog of adapters, developed in the open and curated for safety and quality,
-you can drop Dagger into an existing stack *without changing it*, and immediately start automating the most repetitive and complex tasks.
+If you are familiar with PaaS services like Heroku, Firebase or Openshift:
+Dagger makes it easy to create a custom PaaS that is perfectly tailored to each application,
+instead of forcing it into a rigid, homogeneous mold. The Dagger philosophy
+is that the platform should adapt to the application, not the other way around.
+
+This means that, unlike traditional PaaS, you can use Dagger with all your applications,
+*without having to change your tooling, software stack or infrastructure*.
+
+TODO:
+*[... principles: productivity + compat]*
+*[.. do out-of-the-box things that would require months of work otherwise]*
+*[.. alternative to the dilemna: paas or build your own?]*
+
+## Warning: alpha software
+
+Please note that Dagger is *alpha-quality software*. This means it has many bugs,
+the user interface is minimal, and it may change in incompatible ways at any time.
+
+If you are still willing to try it, thank you! We appreciate your help.
+Please do not hesitate to ask questions, report bugs, or share feedback,
+either in a github or in the discord chatroom.
+
+
+## Platform as code
+
+The most important feature of Dagger is that it is *programmable*.
+
+Thanks to its powerful scripting environment and growing catalog of reusable components,
+anyone with basic programming knowledge can assemble a custom platform for their application,
+and quickly start automating repetitive and complex tasks, so the entire team can spend
+less time getting deployment to work, and more time developing.
 
-And most importantly, Dagger is *programmable*. Thanks to a powerful scripting environment,
-anyone with basic programming knowledge can extend Dagger with their own custom adapters and workflows.
 Whether you're a seasoned SRE building a custom PAAS for your organization, a hobbyist on a fun
 over-engineered week-end project, or a developer trying to setup CICD because, well, someone has to do it..
-There's a whole community of fellow automation enthusiasts ready to help you write your first Dagger script.
+There's a whole community of fellow automation enthusiasts ready to help you write your first script.
+
 
 ## Usage examples
 
 A few examples of how Dagger is used in the wild:
 
-- Deploy a new API to AWS Elastic Container Service while continuing to deploy the main app on Heroku
+- Use AWS Elastic Container Service to deploy the new API, while continuing to deploy the main app on Heroku.
 - Deploy lightweight staging environments on-demand for QA, integration testing or product demos.
 - Run integration tests on a live production-like deployment, automatically, for each pull request.
 - Deploy the same app on Netlify for testing, and on Kubernetes for production
@@ -31,6 +60,70 @@ A few examples of how Dagger is used in the wild:
 - Migrate from Helm to Kustomize, without disrupting next week's big release. 
 
 
+## Getting started
+
+1. Build the `dagger` command-line tool. You will need [Go](https://golang.org) version 1.13 or later.
+
+```
+$ make
+```
+
+2. Copy the `dagger` tool to a location listed in your `$PATH`. For example, to copy it to `/usr/local/bin`:
+
+```
+$ cp ./cmd/dagger/dagger /usr/local/bin
+```
+
+3. Run [buildkitd](https://github.com/moby/buildkit) on your local machine. The simplest way to do this is using [Docker](https://docker.com).
+
+On a machine with Docker installed, run:
+
+```
+$ docker run -d --name buildkitd --privileged moby/buildkit:latest
+```
+
+4. Compute a test configuration
+
+Currently `dagger` can only do one thing: compute a configuration with optional inputs, and print the result.
+
+If you are confused by how to use this for your application, that is normal: `dagger compute` is a low-level command
+which exposes the naked plumbing of the Dagger engine. In future versions, more user-friendly commands will be available
+which hide the complexity of `dagger compute` (but it will always be available to power users, of course!).
+
+Here is an example command, using an example configuration:
+
+```
+$ dagger compute \
+	./examples/simple \
+	--input 'www: hostname: "www.mysuperapp.com"' \
+	--input 'www: source: #dagger: compute: [{do:"fetch-git", remote:"https://github.com/samalba/hellogo", ref:"master"}]'
+```
+
+
+## Custom buildkit setup
+
+Dagger can be configured to use an existing buildkit daemon, running either locally or remotely. This can be done using two environment variables: `BUILDKIT_HOST` and `DOCKER_HOST`.
+
+To use a buildkit daemon listening on TCP port `1234` on localhost:
+
+```
+$ export BUILDKIT_HOST=tcp://localhost:1234
+```
+
+To use a buildkit daemon running in a container named "super-buildkit" on the local docker host:
+
+```
+$ export BUILDKIT_HOST=docker-container://super-buildkit
+```
+
+To use a buildkit daemon running on a remote docker host (be careful to properly secure remotely accessible docker hosts!)
+
+```
+$ export BUILDKIT_HOST=docker-container://super-buildkit
+$ export DOCKER_HOST=tcp://my-remote-docker-host:2376
+```
+
+
 ## Comparison to other automation platforms
 
 
@@ -61,3 +154,5 @@ Kustomize, Helm, jsonnet
 ### Gitops 
 
 Flux, ... 
+
+