add readme and contributing.md

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+By submitting code to this project, you agree to irrevocably release it under the same license as this project. See README.md for more details.

README.md

@@ -1,11 +1,50 @@
 # Compass
 
+Compass is a GPS tracking server that stores data in [flat files](https://github.com/aaronpk/QuartzDB).
 
-### Credits
+## Setup
+
+In the `compass` directory, copy `.env.example` to `.env` and fill in the details. Install the dependencies with composer.
+
+
+## API
+
+After you create a tracking database, you can visit the database's settings page to get a read or write token. These tokens are used with the API to update or retrieve data.
+
+### Writing
+
+To write to a database, make a POST request in JSON format with the following keys:
+
+`POST /api/input`
+
+* locations - a list of GeoJSON objects
+* token - the write token for the database
+
+The GeoJSON objects must have at least one property, "timestamp", which is can be any value that can be interpreted as a date. The object can have any additional properties you wish.
+
+The open source iOS [GPS Logger](https://github.com/esripdx/GPS-Logger-iOS) will send data in this format by default.
+
+### Reading
+
+To read a database, make a GET request with the following keys:
+
+`GET /api/query`
+
+* token - the read token for the database
+* date - specify a date to return all data on that day
+* tz - timezone string (e.g. America/Los_Angeles) which will be used to determine the absolute start/end times for the day
+
+
+
+## Credits
 
 Compass icon by Ryan Spiering from the Noun Project.
 
 
-### License
+## License
+
+Copyright 2015 by Aaron Parecki
+
+Compass is licensed under the [Apache 2.0 license](http://opensource.org/licenses/Apache-2.0)
 
-The Lumen framework is open-sourced software licensed under the [MIT license](http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
+Compass is built using the Lumen framework, which is licensed under the [MIT license](http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)