diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 60f348326..cc2292744 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -1,6 +1,13 @@
-.PHONY: test
+.PHONY: test style
 
-# Run tests for the library
+check_dirs := tests tools/convert_checkpoint
 
-test:
+help: ## this help
+	@awk 'BEGIN {FS = ":.*##"; printf "\nUsage:\n  make \033[36m<target>\033[0m\n"} /^[a-zA-Z_-]+:.*?##/ { printf "  \033[36m%-22s\033[0m %s\n", $$1, $$2 } /^##@/ { printf "\n\033[1m%s\033[0m\n", substr($$0, 5) } ' $(MAKEFILE_LIST)
+
+test: ## run tests
 	pytest tests
+
+style: ## checks for code style and applies formatting
+	black $(check_dirs)
+	isort $(check_dirs)
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..9cb022a7c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+[tool.black]
+line-length = 119
+target-version = ['py35']
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 38837f542..ef6c6af42 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -11,3 +11,6 @@ transformers
 DeepSpeed @ git+https://github.com/microsoft/DeepSpeed.git
 # at some point when it starts working freeze with ether min version or sha using the syntax codecarbon.git@deadbeaf 
 codecarbon @ git+https://github.com/mlco2/codecarbon.git
+# versions from HF transformers
+black==21.4b0
+isort>=5.5.4
diff --git a/setup.cfg b/setup.cfg
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e5e3c2ecd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/setup.cfg
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+[isort]
+default_section = FIRSTPARTY
+ensure_newline_before_comments = True
+force_grid_wrap = 0
+include_trailing_comma = True
+known_first_party = megatron
+known_third_party =
+    apex
+    codecarbon
+    datasets
+    deepspeed
+    git
+    nltk
+    numpy
+    pytest
+    tensorboard
+    torch
+    tqdm
+    transformers
+
+line_length = 119
+lines_after_imports = 2
+multi_line_output = 3
+use_parentheses = True
\ No newline at end of file