diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 6fa48dd..ec27a97 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -179,7 +179,7 @@ Adding a new core is a single class in `server/core_adapters/` implementing the
 ## Testing
 
 ```bash
-pip install -r requirements.txt
+pip install -r requirements.txt -r requirements-dev.txt
 python -m pytest tests/ -q
 ```
 
diff --git a/requirements-dev.txt b/requirements-dev.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..29b9f61
--- /dev/null
+++ b/requirements-dev.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+# Development / test dependencies. Install on top of requirements.txt:
+#   pip install -r requirements.txt -r requirements-dev.txt
+pytest==7.4.0
+pytest-cov==4.1.0
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 8b1daee..8c81983 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
+# Runtime dependencies. Dev/test tools are in requirements-dev.txt; optional
+# SAIP profile generation deps are in requirements-saip.txt.
 Flask==3.0.0
 cryptography==41.0.7
 pymongo==4.6.0
 pyyaml==6.0.1
-pytest==7.4.0
-pytest-cov==4.1.0