diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index c5b0c3e..646359b 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
 /vendor/
 /data/
-/composer.phar
 composer-setup.php
 *.sqlite
 *.sqlite-shm
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index f7f7c11..17acc01 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -59,12 +59,23 @@ cd RSS-Feed
 
 ### 2. Install dependencies
 
+`composer.phar` is committed with the repo, so no global Composer is required:
+
 ```bash
-php composer.phar install
+php composer.phar install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader
 ```
 
-This populates `vendor/`. If Composer is installed globally, `composer install`
-works the same. (`vendor/` and the SQLite DB are gitignored.)
+This populates `vendor/` (both `vendor/` and the SQLite DB are gitignored, so they
+are created here). A system Composer works the same:
+`composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader`.
+
+If `composer.phar` is ever missing, fetch it once:
+
+```bash
+php -r "copy('https://getcomposer.org/installer', 'composer-setup.php');"
+php composer-setup.php --install-dir=. --filename=composer.phar
+rm composer-setup.php
+```
 
 ### 3. Configure
 
diff --git a/composer.phar b/composer.phar
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..2c414ec
Binary files /dev/null and b/composer.phar differ