diff --git a/MANIFEST.in b/MANIFEST.in
index 852141a0..56deb399 100644
--- a/MANIFEST.in
+++ b/MANIFEST.in
@@ -31,6 +31,7 @@ recursive-exclude .github *
 # support files
 recursive-include ocrmypdf/data *
 recursive-include share *
+include *.py
 
 # code
 recursive-include ocrmypdf *.py
diff --git a/tasks.py b/tasks.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..3c5bd3b4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tasks.py
@@ -0,0 +1,101 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python3
+# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
+# © 2016 James R. Barlow: github.com/jbarlow83
+# Release sanity checking
+
+import argparse
+from subprocess import run, PIPE, DEVNULL, STDOUT, CalledProcessError
+from git import Repo, Remote
+import logging
+import re
+import sys
+import os
+
+
+def test_repo(repo):
+    assert not repo.is_dirty(), "Repository is dirty"
+    if repo.untracked_files:
+        logging.warning('Some files are untracked:')
+        logging.warning('\n' + '\n'.join(repo.untracked_files))
+    assert repo.active_branch.name == 'master', 'Not on branch master'
+
+
+def travis(args):
+    repo = Repo('.')
+    test_repo(repo)
+
+    git_describe = repo.git.describe()
+
+    try:
+        env = os.environ.copy()
+        env['SETUPTOOLS_SCM_PRETEND_VERSION'] = git_describe
+        proc = run(['check-manifest'], check=True, universal_newlines=True, stdout=PIPE, stderr=STDOUT, env=env)
+        logging.info(proc.stdout)
+    except CalledProcessError as e:
+        logging.error('MANIFEST.in error')
+        logging.error(e.stdout)
+        sys.exit(1)
+
+    run(['python3', 'setup.py', 'build'], check=True)
+
+    origin = Remote(repo, 'jbarlow')
+    result = origin.push(refspec='master:master')[0]
+    if result.flags & (1024|4|8|32|16):
+        logging.error(result.summary)
+    else:
+        logging.info(result.summary)
+
+    logging.info("Pushed to Travis CI")
+    logging.info("If this passes, git tag and release")
+
+
+def release(args):
+    repo = Repo('.')
+    test_repo(repo)
+
+    git_describe = repo.git.describe()
+
+    assert not git_describe.startswith('v') and not '-' in git_describe and not '+ng' in git_describe, \
+        "Not tagged properly for release: " + git_describe
+
+    plain_version = git_describe[1:]  # without 'v' prefix
+
+    with open('RELEASE_NOTES.rst') as f:
+        notes = f.read()
+        assert plain_version in notes, "Version not mentioned in release notes"
+
+    proc = run(['python3', 'setup.py', 'sdist', 'bdist_wheel'], universal_newlines=True, check=True, stdout=PIPE, stderr=STDOUT)
+    logging.info(proc.stdout)
+
+
+    origin = Remote(repo, 'jbarlow')
+    result = origin.push(refspec='master:master', tags=True)[0]
+    if result.flags & (1024|4|8|32|16):
+        logging.error(result.summary)
+    else:
+        logging.info(result.summary)
+
+    run(['twine', 'upload', '-r', 'pypitest',
+        'dist/ocrmypdf-{}.tar.gz'.format(plain_version),
+        'dist/ocrmypdf-{}-py34-none-any.whl'.format(plain_version)], check=True, universal_newlines=True, stdout=PIPE)
+
+
+parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="ocrmypdf release tasks")
+subparsers = parser.add_subparsers()
+
+push_travis = subparsers.add_parser(
+    'push-travis', description="Push master to travis for testing")
+push_travis.set_defaults(func=travis)
+
+release_parser = subparsers.add_parser(
+    'release', description="Release to PyPI etc")
+release_parser.set_defaults(func=release)
+
+
+def main():
+    args = parser.parse_args()
+    args.func(args)
+
+
+if __name__ == '__main__':
+    main()