diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4a2470d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+# HElmholtz Rich MEtadata Software publication (HERMES)
+
+This code repository contains the [Sphinx](https://sphinx-docs.org), [MyST](https://) and [sphinx-book-theme]() based website for the HERMES project.
+
+Please visit https://project.software-metadata.pub for further reading.
+
+## Build locally
+
+To use the convenient `Makefile`, you need to have `make` installed.
+[You might want to use a virtual Python environment.](https://packaging.python.org/en/latest/guides/installing-using-pip-and-virtual-environments/)
+
+```shell
+
+pip install -r requirements.txt
+make html
+
+- OR - 
+
+pip install -r requirements.txt
+make livehtml
+
+```
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/conf.py b/conf.py
index db7eb7f..81b31fa 100644
--- a/conf.py
+++ b/conf.py
@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@
 # List of patterns, relative to source directory, that match files and
 # directories to ignore when looking for source files.
 # This pattern also affects html_static_path and html_extra_path.
-exclude_patterns = ['_build', 'Thumbs.db', '.DS_Store', 'venv', '.venv']
+exclude_patterns = ['_build', 'Thumbs.db', '.DS_Store', 'venv', '.venv', 'README.md']
 
 # Prefix document path to section labels, to use:
 # `path/to/file:heading` instead of just `heading`