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README.md

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-# pel
-## The most elegant build system
+# Pel is the most elegant build system
+## Introduction
+
+Pel is an easy-to-use build system/task runner written in Python. It is designed to be more advanced than task runners like [Make](https://www.gnu.org/software/make/) or [Invoke](https://www.pyinvoke.org/), but much simpler than complex build systems like [CMake](https://cmake.org/) or [Bazel](https://bazel.build/).
+
+## Installation
+
+### Installation from pip
+
+```
+pip3 install --user pel
+```
+
+It is safe to install Pel as a global Python package. **Installing Pel will never modify any other Python packages on your computer.**
+
+## Development status
+
+Pel is still in the early stages of development. It is not currently ready for production use.
+
+## Features
+
+### Cross-platform support
+
+Pel is written in pure Python, and is intended to work on any operating system supported by Python, such as:
+* Linux
+* Windows
+* macOS
+* FreeBSD
+
+## Why we made Pel
+
+Most build systems are either **too simple** or **too complex**.
+
+ * A **simple** build system, like [Make](https://www.gnu.org/software/make/) or [Invoke](https://www.pyinvoke.org/) makes it easy to run arbitrary shell commands, but makes it hard to add non-trivial dependency management and build caching
+ * A **complex** build system, like [CMake](https://cmake.org/) or [Bazel](https://bazel.build/), offers sophisticated dependency management and build caching, but only for predefined types of build targets. These build systems are excellent choices for building a large C++ monorepo, but can be unwieldy to integrate with arbitrary commands and obscure build tools.
+
+Pel is designed to be the happy medium between simple and complex.