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+This documentation is for developers of this prototype OBO Foundry site.
+
+Note this document is in markdown and is best view on the github.
+
+## Getting Started
+
+You will first need jekyll, which can be installed by the ruby [gem](https://rubygems.org/):
+
+    gem install jekyll
+
+After checking out the code from github, you can start a local server:
+
+    jekyll serve
+
+(this must always be done from the top level)
+
+Then view http://127.0.0.1:4000
+
+You can make changes locally (you will need to start jekyll again - no
+hot fixes).
+
+If you commit and push, your change will be visible within a few
+minutes on: http://obofoundry.github.io
+
+If this site becomes official we may want to institute policies for
+the site: e.g. major new changes happen on forks/branches, with a
+voting policy for merging these in.
+
+## Details
+
+The setup is fairly standard for Jekyll. We use Jekyll bootstrap
+(bootstrap 3). We try and keep things minimal so that the site will
+work on github. Even if you have no knowledge of Jekyll, it is fairly
+easy to introspect what is going on if you have done much CMS work or
+web development.
+
+Basically, every `.md` or `.html` file in the directory is visible on
+the site, the same path. `.md` files are automatically translated to
+`.html` (this happens in the [_site](_site) directory, which you
+should never touch).
+
+Jekyll uses a templating system called liquid. The basic idea is
+simple, templating commands are contained within braces '{ }'.
+
+Pages can have different layouts - see the [_layout/](_layout/)
+directory. They can also include templates from the
+[_includes/](_includes/) directory.
+
+See [_assets](_assets) for bootstrap styling - don't touch this unless
+you know what you're doing.
+
+## Compilation of metadata
+
+For the most part no compilation is necessary. Ontology pages are
+served directly from the source `.md` file.
+
+However, for some purposes it may be necessary to recompile the [_config.yml](_config.yml) file (**never edit this directly**)
+
+To do this, type:
+
+    make
+
+In the top level. Note you will need python3 and the yaml library:
+
+    pip3 install yaml
+
+The dependencies should be visible in the [Makefile](Makefile). The basic idea is:
+
+ * [ontology/](ontology/)*.md  --[extract yaml]--> [registry/ontologies.yaml](registry/ontologies.yaml) --> [_config.yml](_config.yml)
+
+[registry/ontologies.yaml](registry/ontologies.yaml) is also used to
+create [registry/ontologies.rdf](registry/ontologies.rdf) via a
+JSON-LD file (JENA required).
+
+## Pages
+
+### Ontology Table
+
+The front page [index.html](index.html) is the ontology table. It is
+driven by the
+[_includes/ontology_table.html](_includes/ontology_table.html)
+template.
+
+It iterates through all ontologies (these are stored in the variable
+`pages.ontologies` which is set via `_config.yml` - see above for how
+this is built). For each ontology it writes a table row.
+
+### Ontology Pages
+
+These are displayed directly via jekyll. Each ontology has it's own
+`.md` page, which consists of the main page content (free form
+markdown) preceded by a structured yaml block. The structured yaml is
+the ontology metadata (with a direct mapping to RDF), arbitrarily
+nested. See the FAQ for how users should edit this.
+
+The system is fairly simple with no additional compilation outside the
+normal jekyll system. Whenever jekyll displays a markdown file, it
+examines the yaml block and looks for a tag called `layout` (users
+should not mess with this field unless they know what they are
+doing). This determines the template in the `_layout` directory that
+is used to render the markdown.
+
+Currently all pages use the `ontology_detail` layout, which is found
+in
+[_layouts/ontology_detail.html](_layouts/ontology_detail.html). What
+this currently does (and devs more web-savvy than me are welcome to
+contribute different ways of doing this) is display the structured
+yaml metadata in the left of the page, and the freeform (compiled)
+markdown and html in the center.
+
+### Navbar
+
+The navigation bar / menu on the top of the page is controlled by
+[_includes/navbar.html](_includes/navbar.html). It should be easy for
+site admins to add new items, rearrange etc as they see fit
+
+### Organization
+
+This site provides a convenient way to organize OBO Foundry docs, if
+this is deemed appropriate. So far I have copied some docs from the
+original website (much of which is embarassingly stale, rotten or out
+of date). Many things at the top level could be moved down into
+directories to provide better organization.
+
+I have already started a [faq/](faq/) directory (one md file per FAQ entry).
+
+We could in theory easily manage our principles here. E.g. one .md
+file per principle. I personally think this much better than the
+current wiki, but other opinions welcome.
+
+### Bootstrap Conventions
+
+We use bootstrap 3, so far no themes.
+