diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index b6e4761..abe11b1 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+data/
+
 # Byte-compiled / optimized / DLL files
 __pycache__/
 *.py[cod]
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..98e6b56
--- /dev/null
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+from setuptools import setup, find_packages
+from setuptools.command.install import install
+from os import path
+import subprocess
+
+here = path.abspath(path.dirname(__file__))
+
+# Get the long description from the README file
+with open(path.join(here, 'README.md'), encoding='utf-8') as f:
+    long_description = f.read()
+
+setup(
+    # $ pip install violet
+    name='ancestry',
+    version='0.0.1',
+    description='A tool for ancestry prediction',
+    long_description=long_description,
+    long_description_content_type='text/markdown',
+    url='https://github.com/ding-lab/ancestry-pipeline',
+    author='Erik Storrs',
+    author_email='estorrs@wustl.edu',
+    classifiers=[
+        'License :: OSI Approved :: MIT License',
+    ],
+    keywords='Ancestry bam genomics',
+    packages=find_packages(),
+    python_requires='>=3.6',
+    install_requires=[
+        ],
+    include_package_data=True,
+
+    entry_points={
+        'console_scripts': [
+            'run-ancestry=ancestry.main:main',
+        ],
+    },
+)