diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 652f289c..53074f58 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -34,3 +34,41 @@ The API recognizes the following properties under the top-level `api` key in you
 
 Please fork and pull request against upstream master on a feature branch. Pretty please; provide unit tests and script
 fixtures in the `test` directory.
+
+## Unit tests
+
+You can run the unit test suite using the command:
+
+```bash
+$ npm test
+```
+
+## HTTP tests
+
+We have another set of tests which are used to test the HTTP API layer, these tests send expected HTTP requests and then
+assert that the responses coming back have the correct geoJSON format and HTTP status codes.
+
+You can run the HTTP test suite using the command:
+
+```bash
+$ npm run ciao
+```
+
+Note: some of the tests in this suite fail when no data is present in the index, there is a small set of test documents
+provided in `./test/ciao_test_data` which can be inserted in order to avoid these errors.
+
+To inject dummy data in to your local index:
+
+```bash
+$ node test/ciao_test_data.js
+```
+
+You can confirm the dummy data has been inserted with the command:
+
+```bash
+$ curl localhost:9200/pelias/_count?pretty
+{
+  "count" : 9,
+  ...
+}
+```
diff --git a/test/ciao_test_data.js b/test/ciao_test_data.js
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..70b329f6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/ciao_test_data.js
@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+
+/**
+  Test data required by the ciao test suite.
+
+  Some tests will fail when run against an empty index, you can use this script
+  to insert some dummy data in to your index before running the tests.
+
+  note: as this is dummy data, care should be taken in order to make sure these
+  documents don't end up in your production index; for that reason the HTTP port
+  has been hard-coded as port:9200.
+**/
+
+// we use the default config to avoid making calls to
+// a cluster running on a non-standard port.
+var client = require('elasticsearch').Client(),
+    async = require('async'),
+    actions = [];
+
+// add one record per 'type' in order to cause the _default_ mapping
+// to be copied when the new type is created.
+var types = ['venue','address','county','region','county','country','admin0','admin1','admin2'],
+    sources = ['test'],
+    layers = ['geonames'];
+
+// iterate over all types/sources/layers and index a test document
+types.forEach( function( type, i1 ){
+  sources.forEach( function( source, i2 ){
+    layers.forEach( function( layer, i3 ){
+      actions.push( function( done ){
+        client.index({
+          index: 'pelias',
+          type: type,
+          id: [i1,i2,i3].join(':'),
+          body: {
+            source: source,
+            layer: layer,
+            name: { default: 'test' },
+            phrase: { default: 'test' },
+            parent: {
+              country_a: ['USA']
+            }
+          }
+        });
+        done();
+      });
+    });
+  });
+});
+
+// call refresh so the index merges the changes
+actions.push( function( done ){
+  client.indices.refresh( { index: 'pelias' }, done);
+});
+
+// perform all actions in series
+async.series( actions, function( err, resp ){
+  console.log('test data inported');
+});