diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 89953d1..a474f41 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,2 +1,31 @@
-# eth-statediff-service
-standalone statediffing service ontop of leveldb
+## eth-statediff-service
+>> standalone statediffing service ontop of leveldb
+
+Purpose:
+
+Stand up a statediffing service directly on top of a go-ethereum leveldb instance.
+This service can serve historical state data over the same rpc interface as
+[statediffing geth](https://github.com/vulcanize/go-ethereum/releases/tag/v1.9.11-statediff-0.0.5) without needing to run a full node
+
+Usage:
+
+`./eth-statediff-service serve --config={path to toml config file}`
+
+Config:
+
+```toml
+[leveldb]
+    path = "/Users/user/Library/Ethereum/geth/chaindata"
+    ancient = "/Users/user/Library/Ethereum/geth/chaindata/ancient"
+
+[server]
+    ipcPath = "~/.vulcanize/vulcanize.ipc"
+    httpPath = "127.0.0.1:8545"
+
+[log]
+    file = ""
+    level = "info"
+
+[eth]
+    chainID = 1
+```
diff --git a/cmd/root.go b/cmd/root.go
index 8d85a79..543138a 100644
--- a/cmd/root.go
+++ b/cmd/root.go
@@ -85,7 +85,7 @@ func init() {
 
 	rootCmd.PersistentFlags().StringVar(&cfgFile, "config", "", "config file location")
 	rootCmd.PersistentFlags().String("log-file", "", "file path for logging")
-	rootCmd.PersistentFlags().String("log-level", log.InfoLevel.String(), "Log level (trace, debug, info, warn, error, fatal, panic")
+	rootCmd.PersistentFlags().String("log-level", log.InfoLevel.String(), "log level (trace, debug, info, warn, error, fatal, panic")
 
 	viper.BindPFlag("log.file", rootCmd.PersistentFlags().Lookup("log-file"))
 	viper.BindPFlag("log.level", rootCmd.PersistentFlags().Lookup("log-level"))