diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..616e61754
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+.PHONY: list-packages test-env test
+
+CONDA_CHANNELS = -c conda-forge/label/vtk_dev -c cdat/label/vtk_dev -c cdat/label/nightly -c conda-forge
+
+TEST_PACKAGES = vcs
+TEST_DEPENDENCIES = udunits2 testsrunner matplotlib image-compare nbformat ipywidgets pytest $(EXTRA_TEST_DEPENDENCIES)
+
+list-packages:
+	conda list | grep -E "^(vcs|vtk|mesalib)"
+
+test-env:
+	conda create -n test_vcs $(CONDA_CHANNELS) $(TEST_DEPENDENCIES) $(TEST_PACKAGES)
+
+test:
+	python run_tests.py -n 4 -H -v2 --timeout=100000 --checkout-baseline --no-vtk-ui