diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 67f1d82..cc13b35 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1 +1,3 @@
 # python-demo test
+
+before running any stage you will need to set up a 'CS_TOKEN' env var containing an Codesphere API key.
diff --git a/backend/README.md b/backend/README.md
index e69de29..30d74d2 100644
--- a/backend/README.md
+++ b/backend/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+test
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