diff --git a/docs/coding-style.md b/docs/coding-style.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..6e42d7dda
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/coding-style.md
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+## Shell scripts
+Shell scripts should loosely follow the general Alpine style which is derived from the Linux Kernel guidelines, i.e. tabs for indentation etc.
+
+It's also useful to run `shellcheck` on the scripts.
+
+## Go code
+New Go code should be formatted with `gofmt`
+
+## C code
+C code written from scratch should follow the
+[Linux kernel coding guidelines](https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git/tree/Documentation/CodingStyle)
+as much as it makes sense for userspace code.  You can check your code with [checkpatch.pl](https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git/tree/scripts/checkpatch.pl) like this:
+```
+checkpatch.pl --no-tree --file <sourcefile>
+```