build core, basic and go variants and add template

README.md

@@ -1,3 +1,56 @@
-# code
+# Containerized `code` IDE
+`code` is a containerized IDE, that runs in the terminal and is based on
+[tmux][tmux] and [neovim][neovim]. That means you can run it on a machine
+without X server or even within an SSH terminal session.
 
-Containerized IDE, that runs in the terminal.
+The [podman][podman] containerization makes the development environment not
+only more secure but also reproducible. If something in the editor were to
+break, restarting it would create a fresh container. Since only the current
+working directory is mounted into the container, the editor plugins and code
+dependencies can't directly access any other files on your system. In
+combination with code reviews on your code hosting platform of trust, this
+might even be a reasonable trade-off between security and productivity.
+
+[tmux]: https://tmux.github.io/
+[neovim]: https://neovim.io/
+[podman]: https://podman.io/
+
+## Variants
+The beauty of `code` is, that you can easily specify a separate development
+environment for each of your coding workflows by writing a Containerfile and
+building it. When starting `code`, you simply specify the variant you'd like to
+use on the command line.
+
+The default and most basic variant is *core*. It contains the shell
+configuration and a basic neovim setup, that doesn't use any third party
+plugins and therefore is the most secure choice. The *basic* variant contains
+[git][git] and a bunch of plugins and configurations for integration with tmux,
+file tree navigation, completion, quick editing and visuals. It doesn't contain
+any language runtimes, libraries or LSP servers though. Any language or
+workflow-specific variants can be built on top of *basic*.
+
+[git]: https://git-scm.com/
+
+## Using `code`
+After cloning the repository and making sure, that podman is installed on your
+machine, you can build all images by executing `./build.sh` or only selected
+variants by passing them as command line arguments. The *core* and *basic*
+variants need to be built before any variants depending on them.
+
+Now you can link the `code` script to some directory in your `$PATH` (e. g.
+`ln -s "$(pwd)/code" ~/.local/bin/code`) and edit your first file by executing
+`code my-file.txt`. Some flags at the beginning of the command are interpreted
+by `code`, everything else gets passed to neovim. To learn more about `code`s
+command line flags, execute `code --help`.
+
+## Building new variants
+Simply copy the template directory, add you [alpine packages][alpine] and
+further instructions to the Containerfile, add additional neovim configuration
+files etc. and build your variant with `./build.sh my-variant`. You can now run
+it by executing `code --my-variant`.
+
+Please consider the files in the template directory for further instructions
+on installing packages, configuring neovim, installing and configuring plugins
+etc.
+
+[alpine]: https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/packages