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+# Ninja
+
+Ninja is a small build system with a focus on speed.
+https://ninja-build.org/
+
+See [the manual](https://ninja-build.org/manual.html) or
+`doc/manual.asciidoc` included in the distribution for background
+and more details.
+
+Binaries for Linux, Mac, and Windows are available at
+  [GitHub](https://github.com/ninja-build/ninja/releases).
+Run `./ninja -h` for Ninja help.
+
+Installation is not necessary because the only required file is the
+resulting ninja binary. However, to enable features like Bash
+completion and Emacs and Vim editing modes, some files in misc/ must be
+copied to appropriate locations.
+
+If you're interested in making changes to Ninja, read CONTRIBUTING.md first.
+
+## Building Ninja itself
+
+You can either build Ninja via the custom generator script written in Python or
+via CMake. For more details see
+[the wiki](https://github.com/ninja-build/ninja/wiki).
+
+### Python
+
+```
+./configure.py --bootstrap
+```
+
+This will generate the `ninja` binary and a `build.ninja` file you can now use
+to built Ninja with itself.
+
+### CMake
+
+```
+cmake -Bbuild-cmake -H.
+cmake --build build-cmake
+```
+
+The `ninja` binary will now be inside the `build-cmake` directory (you can
+choose any other name you like).
+
+To run the unit tests:
+
+```
+./build-cmake/ninja_test
+```