diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..6510e1105
--- /dev/null
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+distributed with this work for additional information
+regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+"License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+  http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+"AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+specific language governing permissions and limitations
+under the License.
+
+# Contributing to iceberg-cpp
+
+This document describes how to set up a development environment, run tests, and use existing tooling such as Docker and pre-commit for iceberg-cpp.
+
+## Development environment
+
+The project can be built and developed using the existing Docker-based environment. Please refer to the README and Doxygen documentation for more detailed API and usage information.
+
+### Local prerequisites
+
+- Git
+- CMake and a C++23-compatible compiler
+- Python (for pre-commit)
+- Docker (recommended for a consistent dev environment)
+
+## Building and testing
+
+Typical steps (refer to README for exact commands and options):
+
+```bash
+mkdir build
+cd build
+cmake ..
+make -j$(nproc)
+ctest