diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index b4768de5449380f394d16ce327f1496481e934a0..ecc6426d8f9a97d9ee4d814e5adf7afcb8ee4a65 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -53,9 +53,19 @@ The key collaboration/user code repositories are:
 - [Physics benchmarks](https://eicweb.phy.anl.gov/EIC/benchmarks/physics_benchmarks) - Analysis of reconstructed for physics performance.  The goal is to provide metrics for optimizing detector design and reconstruction. 
 
 
+### Pipelines and Artifacts
 
+The SWG leverages gitlab's CI/CD features heavily in our workflow.
+Here are some simplified explanations of these.
+
+#### Pipeline 
+
+A pipeline is an automated set of jobs/scripts that are triggered by certain actions, such as pushing a merge request or merging into the master/main branch of a repository.
+Typically there is one pipeline per repository but there can multiple and a pipline can trigger downstream pipelines ("child" pipelines) or it can be triggered by an upstream pipeline. They can also be triggered manually.
+
+The graph below show some of the downstream pipeline triggers (arrows) between different repositories.
 ```mermaid
-graph TD;
+graph pipeline_triggers;
   ip[IP6<br>detectors/ip6] --> athena[ATHENA<br>detectors/athena]
   athena-->db[Detector Benchmarks<br>benchmarks/detector_benchmarks];
   db-->rb[Reconstruct Benchmarks<br>benchmarks/reconstruction_benchmarks];
@@ -64,5 +74,17 @@ graph TD;
   juggler-->pb;
 ```
 
+Note that on any change to the detectors will cause all the benchmarks to be run.
+
+"OK, pipelines run automatically. What is the big deal?
+
+#### Artifacts
+
+All pipeline jobs have "artifacts" which are just selected files that are saved and can be downloaded individually or as a zip file.
+
+Note artifacts are not the output data which is far too big. Artifacts are small files such as images, plots, text files, reports, etc.
+
+
+