diff --git a/cloud/shepherd/equinix/manager/README.md b/cloud/shepherd/equinix/manager/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e3c0f24
--- /dev/null
+++ b/cloud/shepherd/equinix/manager/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+Equinix Shepherd
+===
+
+Manages Equinix machines in sync with BMDB contents. Made up of two components:
+
+Provisioner
+---
+
+Brings up machines from hardware reservations and populates BMDB with new Provided machines.
+
+Initializer
+---
+
+Starts the Agent over SSH (wherever necessary per the BMDB) and reports success into the BMDB.
+
+
+Running
+===
+
+Unit Tests
+---
+
+The Shepherd has some basic smoke tests which run against a Fakequinix.
+
+Manual Testing
+---
+
+If you have Equinix credentials, you can run:
+
+```
+$ bazel build //cloud/shepherd/equinix/manager/server
+$ bazel build //cloud/shepherd/equinix/manager/test_agent
+$ bazel-bin/cloud/shepherd/equinix/manager/server/server_/server \
+    -bmdb_eat_my_data \
+    -equinix_project_id FIXME \
+    -equinix_api_username FIXME \
+    -equinix_api_key FIXME \
+    -agent_executable_path bazel-bin/cloud/shepherd/equinix/manager/test_agent/test_agent_/test_agent \
+    -agent_endpoint example.com \
+    -equinix_ssh_key_label $USER-FIXME \
+    -equinix_device_prefix $USER-FIXME- \
+    -provisioner_assimilate -provisioner_max_machines 10
+```
+
+Replace $USER-FIXME with `<your username>-test` or some other unique name/prefix.
+
+This will start a single instance of the provisioner accompanied by a single instance of the initializer.
+
+A persistent SSH key will be created in your current working directory.
+
+Prod Deployment
+---
+
+TODO(q3k): split server binary into separate provisioner/initializer for initializer scalability, as that's the main bottleneck.
\ No newline at end of file