diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 2b0f468..6ce869c 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,2 +1,6 @@
 # c-multicodec
 multicodec for IPFS in C.
+
+An implementation of multicodec in C. For the spec, check out https://github.com/multiformats/multicodec
+
+For an implmentation in go, see https://github.com/multiformats/go-multicodec
diff --git a/multicodec.c b/multicodec.c
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6a9fe8f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/multicodec.c
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+#include "multicodec.h"
+
+int multicodec_encode(const char* codecName, char* inData, size_t inDataLength, char* outData, size_t maxOutDataLength) {
+
+}
+
+int multicodec_decode(char* inData, size_t inDataLength, char* outData, size_t maxOutDataLength) {
+
+}
diff --git a/multicodec.h b/multicodec.h
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a371c28
--- /dev/null
+++ b/multicodec.h
@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+/**
+ * An implementation of multicodec
+ * See https://github.com/multiformats/multicodec
+ */
+
+#ifndef __MULTICODEC_H__
+#define __MULTICODEC_H__
+
+#include <stdlib.h>
+
+#define MULTICODEC_RAW_BINARY 0x052f6269632f
+#define MULTICODEC_ASCII_BASE_2 0x042f62322f
+
+/**
+ * Encode a char array using the specified encoding
+ * @param codecName a standard name of the codec
+ * @param inData the incoming data to be encoded
+ * @param inDataLength the length of the inData
+ * @param outData a place to store the outgoing data that is at least maxOutDataLength in size
+ * @param maxOutDataLength the max size for the output
+ * @returns an error code or 0 if all is well
+ */
+int multicodec_encode(const char* codecName, char* inData, size_t inDataLength, char* outData, size_t maxOutDataLength);
+
+/**
+ * Decode a multicodec encoded data array
+ * @param inData the data to be decoded
+ * @param inDataLength the length of the data to be encoded
+ * @param outData the array to put the results in
+ * @param maxOutDataLength the maximum size of the data
+ * @returns an error code or 0 if all is well
+ */
+int multicodec_decode(char* inData, size_t inDataLength, char* outData, size_t maxOutDataLength);
+
+#endif // __MULTICODEC_H__