diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 4c3976bb3..012b1531a 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -3,3 +3,4 @@ debug.log
 .vscode/
 err.log
 log.log
+.env/
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index b2562dbe9..4e7440041 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1 +1,44 @@
-# workflow
\ No newline at end of file
+# workflow
+
+A concise README for this repository.
+
+## Overview
+
+This repository contains tooling and research code for DeepFlow and ASTRA-sim:
+- DeepFlow: performance & energy modeling, architecture search, and validation scripts.
+  See [DeepFlow/README.md](DeepFlow/README.md).
+- ASTRA-sim: network and system simulator (analytical, ns-3, and garnet backends).
+  See [astra-sim/README.md](astra-sim/README.md).
+
+## Quickstart
+
+1. Clone repo
+```sh
+git clone --recursive <repo>
+```
+
+2. Prepare Python environment:
+```sh
+python3 -m venv .venv
+source .venv/bin/activate
+pip install --upgrade pip
+pip install tqdm
+```
+
+3. Run entire workflow
+To generate execution traces (neccessary for first run), comment out below in `main` in `workflow.py`
+```python
+runner = DeepFlowRunner()
+runner.run_all()
+
+parser = DeepFlowParser()
+parser.parse_all()
+```
+Then, run astra-sim, run ``run_all()`` ``for AstraSimRunner``, only ``install_chakra`` for first run to your venv, if see protobuf version error, use pip to force install a version it prompts.
+```python
+def run_all(self):
+    self.compile_astrasim()
+    self.install_chakra()
+    self.convert_text_to_chakra()
+    self.run_astrasim()
+```