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+# Enzyme-JAX Developer Notes
+
+## Building the Project
+
+### Quick Build
+```bash
+bazel build --repo_env=CC=clang-18 --color=yes --copt=-fbracket-depth=1024 --host_copt=-fbracket-depth=1024 -c dbg :enzymexlamlir-opt
+```
+
+### Build Artifacts
+- **Main tool**: `enzymexlamlir-opt` (bazel target: `:enzymexlamlir-opt`)
+  - This is the MLIR optimization tool driver for Enzyme-XLA
+  - Analogous to `mlir-opt`, drives compiler passes and transformations
+  - Located in: `src/enzyme_ad/jax/enzymexlamlir-opt.cpp`
+
+- **Python wheel**: `bazel build :wheel`
+
+### Generate LSP Support
+```bash
+bazel run :refresh_compile_commands
+```
+
+## Project Structure
+
+### Core Components
+
+#### 1. **Dialects** (`src/enzyme_ad/jax/Dialect/`)
+MLIR dialects define custom operations and types for Enzyme-JAX.
+
+- **EnzymeXLAOps.td** - Dialect operation definitions
+  - GPU operations: `kernel_call`, `memcpy`, `gpu_wrapper`, `gpu_block`, `gpu_thread`
+  - JIT/XLA operations: `jit_call`, `xla_wrapper`
+  - Linear algebra (BLAS/LAPACK): `symm`, `syrk`, `trmm`, `lu`, `getrf`, `gesvd`, etc.
+  - Special functions: Bessel functions, GELU, ReLU
+  - Utility operations: `memref2pointer`, `pointer2memref`, `subindex`
+
+- **EnzymeXLAAttrs.td** - Custom attribute definitions (LAPACK enums, etc.)
+
+#### 2. **Passes** (`src/enzyme_ad/jax/Passes/`)
+MLIR passes implement transformations and optimizations.
+
+- Tablegen definitions in `src/enzyme_ad/jax/Passes/Passes.td`
+- **EnzymeHLOOpt.cpp** - Core optimization patterns for StableHLO and EnzymeXLA operations
+  This file contains (nearly) all the stablehlo tensor optimizations.
+
+#### 3. **Transform Operations** (`src/enzyme_ad/jax/TransformOps/`)
+In order to have more granular control over which pattern is applied, patterns are also registered as transform operations.
+For example:
+```
+def AndPadPad : EnzymeHLOPatternOp<
+    "and_pad_pad"> {
+  let patterns = ["AndPadPad"];
+}
+```
+Exposes the `AndPadPad` pattern (defined in `EnzymeHLOOpt.cpp`) to `enzymexlamlir-opt`, so it can be used as:
+```
+enzymexlamlir-opt --enzyme-hlo-generate-td="patterns=and_pad_pad" --transform-interpreter --enzyme-hlo-remove-transform -allow-unregistered-dialect input.mlir
+```
+
+## Common Development Tasks
+
+### Adding a New Optimization Pattern
+
+1. Define the pattern class in `src/enzyme_ad/jax/Passes/EnzymeHLOOpt.cpp`
+2. Inherit from `mlir::OpRewritePattern<OpType>`
+3. Implement `matchAndRewrite()` method
+4. Register in `EnzymeHLOOptPass::runOnOperation()`
+5. Register as Transform operation in `TransformOps.td`
+6. Add the pass to the appropriate pass list in `src/enzyme_ad/jax/primitives.py`
+
+### Adding a new lowering pass
+1. Define the pass in `src/enzyme_ad/jax/Passes/Passes.td`, e.g. `LowerEnzymeXLALinalgPass`
+2. Create a new `.cpp` file in `src/enzyme_ad/jax/Passes/`, e.g. `src/enzyme_ad/jax/Passes/LowerEnzymeXLALinalg.cpp`. In the new file...
+   1. Inherit from `mlir::OpRewritePattern<OpType>` and implement the `matchAndRewrite()` method.
+   2. Inherit from the generated `PassBase` class and implement `runOnOperation` to register your pass.
+3. Write lit tests for your pass, e.g. `test/lit_tests/linalg/*.mlir`.
+
+### Adding a New Dialect Operation
+
+1. Define operation in `src/enzyme_ad/jax/Dialect/EnzymeXLAOps.td`
+2. Specify arguments, results, and traits
+3. Implement operation class if needed in `src/enzyme_ad/jax/Dialect/Ops.cpp`
+4. TODO: write about derivative rules?
+
+## Testing
+
+Run all tests with:
+```bash
+bazel test //test/...
+```
+This recursively runs all targets in the `test/` directory.
+
+Most of the Enzyme-JaX tests use [lit](https://llvm.org/docs/CommandGuide/lit.html) for testing.
+These tests are stored in `test/lit_tests`.
+A lit test contains one or more run directives at the top a file.
+e.g. in `test/lit_tests/if.mlir`:
+```mlir
+// RUN: enzymexlamlir-opt %s --enzyme-hlo-opt | FileCheck %s
+```
+This instructs `lit` to run the `enzyme-hlo-opt` pass on `test/lit_tests/if.mlir`.
+The output is fed to `FileCheck` which compares it against the expected result that is provided in comments in the file that start with `// CHECK`.
+
+Run all lit tests with
+```bash
+bazel test //test/lit_tests/...
+```
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index b92219dd91..2cb2579488 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,9 +1,6 @@
 # Enzyme-JAX
 
-Custom bindings for Enzyme automatic differentiation tool and interfacing with
-JAX. Currently this is set up to allow you to automatically import, and
-automatically differentiate (both jvp and vjp) external C++ code into JAX. As
-Enzyme is language-agnostic, this can be extended for arbitrary programming
+Enzyme-JAX is a C++ project whose original aim was to integrate the Enzyme automatic differentiation tool [1] with JAX, enabling automatic differentiation of external C++ code within JAX. It has since expanded to incorporate Polygeist's [2] high performance raising, parallelization, cross compilation workflow, as well as numerous tensor, linear algerba, and communication optimizations. The project uses LLVM's MLIR framework for intermediate representation and transformation of code. As Enzyme is language-agnostic, this can be extended for arbitrary programming
 languages (Julia, Swift, Fortran, Rust, and even Python)!
 
 You can use
@@ -77,3 +74,8 @@ Enzyme-Jax exposes a bunch of different tensor rewrites as MLIR passes in `src/e
 ```bash
 bazel run :refresh_compile_commands
 ```
+
+# References
+[1] Moses, William, and Valentin Churavy. "Instead of rewriting foreign code for machine learning, automatically synthesize fast gradients." Advances in neural information processing systems 33 (2020): 12472-12485.
+
+[2] Moses, William S., et al. "Polygeist: Raising C to polyhedral MLIR." 2021 30th International Conference on Parallel Architectures and Compilation Techniques (PACT). IEEE, 2021.