diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5674cc0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,83 @@
+# Accidental Classifier
+
+A small CNN that classifies musical accidentals — **sharp**, **flat**, and **natural** — from cropped grayscale images of engraved scores.
+
+Trained on crops extracted from the [PrIMuS dataset](https://grfia.dlsi.ua.es/primus/) and achieves **100% accuracy** on a held-out test set (750 samples).
+
+```
+Confusion matrix (rows=true, cols=predicted):
+               flat  natural    sharp
+  flat          250        0        0
+  natural         0      250        0
+  sharp           0        0      250
+```
+
+## Architecture
+
+| | |
+|---|---|
+| **Input** | 1 × 40 × 40 grayscale |
+| **Backbone** | 3 conv blocks (16 → 32 → 64 channels), each with BatchNorm + ReLU + MaxPool |
+| **Head** | Dropout → FC(1600, 64) → ReLU → Dropout → FC(64, 3) |
+| **Parameters** | ~115 k |
+| **Output** | 3-class logits (flat / natural / sharp) |
+
+A saved ONNX export is also produced by `train.py` for inference via OpenCV's `dnn` module.
+
+## Repository layout
+
+```
+train.py                  Training pipeline (CNN + augmentation + weighted sampling)
+eval.py                   Evaluate saved checkpoint on the held-out test set
+extract_accidentals.py    Extract accidental crops from PrIMuS MEI files via Verovio
+extract_fast.py           Faster single-font variant of the extractor
+explore_dataset.py        Explore PrIMuS agnostic encodings and image statistics
+segment_test.py           Connected-component symbol segmentation experiment
+model/
+  accidental_classifier.pt   Saved PyTorch weights (best validation accuracy)
+```
+
+## Pipeline
+
+### 1. Extract crops
+
+Render each PrIMuS MEI file with [Verovio](https://www.verovio.org/), locate accidental glyphs (SMuFL codepoints E260/E261/E262) in the SVG, rasterize with cairosvg, and crop each symbol into `crops/{flat,natural,sharp}/`.
+
+```bash
+python extract_fast.py
+```
+
+### 2. Train
+
+Loads all crops into RAM, applies a stratified train/val/test split (seed 42), trains with data augmentation (random affine + erasing) and class-balanced sampling, and saves the best checkpoint.
+
+```bash
+python train.py
+```
+
+### 3. Evaluate
+
+Reproduces the identical test split and reports accuracy, per-class metrics, the confusion matrix, and sample misclassifications.
+
+```bash
+python eval.py
+```
+
+## Dependencies
+
+- Python 3.10+
+- PyTorch
+- torchvision
+- NumPy
+- Pillow
+- OpenCV (`cv2`) — for ONNX verification and segmentation experiments
+- Verovio (Python bindings) — for crop extraction only
+- cairosvg — for crop extraction only
+
+## Data
+
+Training data is derived from [PrIMuS](https://grfia.dlsi.ua.es/primus/) (Calvo-Zaragoza & Rizo, 2018). The extracted crops and raw dataset are not included in this repository due to size.
+
+## License
+
+This project is released into the public domain.