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+# ArgoCD Image Updater
+
+## Introduction
+
+ArgoCD Image Updater is a tool to automatically update the container
+images of Kubernetes workloads which are managed by ArgoCD.
+
+Currently it will only work with applications that are built using *Kustomize*
+or *Helm* tooling. Applications built from plain YAML or custom tools are not
+supported yet (and maybe never will). 
+
+## Documentation
+
+Read
+[the documentation](https://argocd-image-updater.readthedocs.io)
+for more information on how to setup and run ArgoCD Image Updater and to get
+known to it's features and limitations.
+
+## Current status
+
+**Disclaimer: This is pre-release code. It might have bugs that will
+break things in unexpected way.**
+
+ArgoCD Image Updater was born just recently, and is not suitable for
+production workloads yet. You are welcome to test it in your non-critical
+environments, and to contribute by filing bugs, enhancement requests or even
+better, sending in pull requests.
+
+We decided to publish the code early, so that the community can be involved
+early on in the development process, too.
+
+**Important note:** Until the first stable version (i.e. `v1.0`) is released,
+breaking changes between the releases must be expected. We will do our best
+to indicate all breaking changes (and how to un-break them) in the
+[Changelog](CHANGELOG.md)
+
+## Contributing
+
+You are welcome to contribute to this project by means of raising issues for
+bugs, sending & discussing enhancment ideas or by contributing code via pull
+requests.
+
+In any case, please be sure that you have read & understood the currently known
+design limitations before raising issues.
+
+Also, if you want to contribute code, please make sure that your code
+
+* has its functionality covered by unit tests (coverage goal is 80%),
+* is correctly linted,
+* is well commented,
+* and last but not least is compatible with our license and CLA
+
+## License
+
+`argocd-image-updater` is open source software, released under the
+[Apache 2.0 license](https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
+
+## Things that are planned (roadmap)
+
+The following things are on the roadmap until the `v1.0` release.
+
+* Extend ArgoCD functionality to be able to update images for other types of
+  applications.
+
+* Provide web hook support to trigger update check for a given image
+
+* Use concurrency for updating multiple applications at once
+
+* Improve error handling
+
+* Support for image tags with i.e. Git commit SHAs
+
+## Frequently asked questions
+
+**Does it write back the changes to Git?**
+
+No, and this feature is also not planned for any of the next releases. We think
+it's close to impossible to get such a feature 100% correctly working, because
+there are so many edge-cases to consider (i.e. possible merge conflicts) and
+there's no easy way to find out where a certain resource lives in Git when
+manifests are rendered through a tool.
+
+**How does it persist the changes then?**
+
+The ArgoCD Image Updater leverages the ArgoCD API to set application paramaters,
+and ArgoCD will then persist the change in the application's manifest. This is
+something ArgoCD will not overwrite upon the next manual (or automatic) sync,
+except when the overrides are explicitly set in the manifest.
+
+**Are there plans to extend functionality beyond Kustomize or Helm?**
+
+Not yet, since we are dependent upon what functionality ArgoCD provides for
+these types of applications.
+
+**Will it ever be fully integrated with ArgoCD?**
+
+In the current form, probably not. If there is community demand for it, let's
+see how we can make this happen.