diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index c7f19fd..d46c1a2 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -10,6 +10,35 @@
 
 Operations contracts for parity's auto-updater.
 
+## Description
+
+The `Operations` contract interface provides a registry of release data for different clients. For
+each registered client it is possible to fetch the latest release of a given release track
+(e.g. stable, beta, nightly), and for each release there is a registry of binary checksums for each
+available platform.
+
+The interface is implemented by the `SimpleOperations` contract which has an owner. The owner of the
+`SimpleOperations` contract can set client owners, which can themselves manage their own client
+releases using:
+
+- `addRelease(bytes32 _release, uint32 _forkBlock, uint8 _track, uint24 _semver, bool _critical)`
+- `addChecksum(bytes32 _release, bytes32 _platform, bytes32 _checksum)`
+
+Additionally, there's an `OperationsProxy` contract that is a specialised multisig proxy wallet for
+the `Operations` contract. It splits the client management primitives into a two step process, where
+a delegate account can propose releases (or checksums) which must then be approved by a confirmer
+account. The delegates and confirmers are defined per track.
+
+### Note
+
+Due to the way data is stored in the `SimpleOperations` contract, the semantics of client removal
+are a bit tricky. Whenever a client is removed by the contract owner, only ownership of the client
+from the current client owner is removed, the existing release and build data is kept. The getters
+in the contract are guarded against this behavior, and check that the client is currently not
+removed (i.e. no owner) before accessing the data. **If a removed client is then re-added (with
+`setClient`) all of the previous release and build information is available and returned by the
+getters.**
+
 ## Getting started
 
 This project uses the [Truffle](http://truffleframework.com/) framework. To install the required