diff --git a/.github/workflows/release.yml b/.github/workflows/release.yml
index 42fc710..938be10 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/release.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/release.yml
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ jobs:
     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
 
     steps:
-    
+
     - name: Create GitHub release
       uses: actions/create-release@v1
       id: create_release
@@ -26,6 +26,16 @@ jobs:
       env:
         GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
 
+      - name: Add readme.txt to release
+        uses: actions/upload-release-asset@v1
+        env:
+          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
+        with:
+          upload_url: ${{ steps.create_release.outputs.upload_url }}
+          asset_path: standalone_readme.txt
+          asset_name: readme.txt
+          asset_content_type: text/plain
+
     outputs:
       upload_url: ${{ steps.create_release.outputs.upload_url }}
 
@@ -97,7 +107,7 @@ jobs:
           pip install -r requirements.txt
           pip install .
           pyinstaller -F -n meshtastic --collect-all meshtastic --codesign-identity "$MACOS_SIGNING_IDENTITY" meshtastic/__main__.py
-  
+
       - name: Add mac to release
         uses: actions/upload-release-asset@v1
         env:
@@ -107,12 +117,12 @@ jobs:
           asset_path: dist/meshtastic
           asset_name: meshtastic_mac
           asset_content_type: application/zip
-  
+
   build-and-publish-ubuntu:
     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
     needs: release_create
     steps:
-          
+
       - name: Checkout
         uses: actions/checkout@v2
 
@@ -127,7 +137,7 @@ jobs:
           pip install -r requirements.txt
           pip install .
           pyinstaller -F -n meshtastic --collect-all meshtastic meshtastic/__main__.py
-  
+
       - name: Add ubuntu to release
         uses: actions/upload-release-asset@v1
         env:
diff --git a/standalone_readme.txt b/standalone_readme.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bf3ea2a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/standalone_readme.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+readme.txt for single standalone executable zip files that can be
+downloaded from https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-python/releases
+
+If you do not want to install python and/or the python libraries, you can download one of these
+zip files to run the Meshtastic command line interface (CLI) as a standalone executable.
+
+See https://meshtastic.org/docs/software/python/python-standalone for more info.