--- /dev/null
+# Minimal makefile for Sphinx documentation
+#
+
+# You can set these variables from the command line.
+SPHINXOPTS =
+SPHINXBUILD = sphinx-build
+SPHINXPROJ = fdio-firstcut
+SOURCEDIR = .
+BUILDDIR = _build
+
+# Put it first so that "make" without argument is like "make help".
+help:
+ @$(SPHINXBUILD) -M help "$(SOURCEDIR)" "$(BUILDDIR)" $(SPHINXOPTS) $(O)
+
+.PHONY: help Makefile
+
+# Catch-all target: route all unknown targets to Sphinx using the new
+# "make mode" option. $(O) is meant as a shortcut for $(SPHINXOPTS).
+%: Makefile
+ @$(SPHINXBUILD) -M $@ "$(SOURCEDIR)" "$(BUILDDIR)" $(SPHINXOPTS) $(O)
\ No newline at end of file
--- /dev/null
+
+Building VPP Documents
+
+These instructions show how the VPP documentation sources are built.
+
+To build your files, you can either Create a Virtual Environment using
+virtualenv, which installs all the required applications for you.
+
+Create a Virtual Environment using virtualenv
+============================
+
+For more information on how to use the Python virtual environment check
+out https://packaging.python.org/guides/installing-using-pip-and-virtualenv
+
+Get the Documents
+------------------------------
+
+For example start with a clone of the vpp.
+
+$ git clone https://gerrit.fd.io/r/vpp
+$ cd vpp
+
+Install the virtual environment
+----------------------------------------------
+
+$ python -m pip install --user virtualenv
+$ python -m virtualenv env
+$ source env/bin/activate
+$ pip install -r docs/etc/requirements.txt
+$ cd docs
+
+Which installs all the required applications into it's own, isolated,
+virtual environment, so as to not interfere with other builds that may
+use different versions of software.
+
+Build the html files
+----------------------------
+
+Be sure you are in your vpp/docs directory, since that is where Sphinx will
+look for your conf.py file, and build the documents into an index.html file
+
+$ make html
+
+View the results
+------------------------
+
+If there are no errors during the build process, you should now have an
+index.html file in your vpp/docs/_build/html directory, which you can
+then view in your browser.