diff --git a/.github/workflows/build.yml b/.github/workflows/build.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..93e519a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/workflows/build.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+name: Test the Build
+
+on:
+  # test on PRs and double-test on merges to master, or manually.
+  pull_request:
+  push:
+    branches:
+      - master
+  workflow_dispatch:
+
+jobs:
+  build:
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    steps:
+    - uses: actions/checkout@v2
+    - name: Set up Python
+      uses: actions/setup-python@v1
+    - name: Build tools
+      run: |
+          python -m pip install --upgrade pip
+          pip install build
+    - name: Build
+      run: |
+          python -m build --wheel --sdist
diff --git a/.github/workflows/release.yml b/.github/workflows/release.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e6b1fa3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/workflows/release.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+name: Publish
+
+on:
+  # publish from the Releases page:
+  release:
+    types: [published]
+  # publish from the Actions page:
+  workflow_dispatch:
+    inputs:
+      version:
+        description: 'Version (e.g. 2.0.3)'
+        required: true
+
+jobs:
+  publish:
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    steps:
+    - uses: actions/checkout@v2
+    - name: Set up Python
+      uses: actions/setup-python@v1
+    - name: Build tools
+      run: |
+          python -m pip install --upgrade pip
+          pip install build
+    - name: Build
+      run: |
+          python -m build --wheel --sdist
+    ### TODO: can the uploads be parallelized?
+    - name: Publish to Github
+      uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v1
+      with:
+        files: 'dist/*'
+        fail_on_unmatched_files: true
+        tag_name: ${{ github.event.inputs.version }} # in the workflow_dispatch case, make a new tag from the given input; in the published release case, this will be empty and will fall back to updating that release.
+      env:
+        GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
+    - name: Publish to PyPI
+      uses: pypa/gh-action-pypi-publish@release/v1
+      with:
+        user: __token__
+        #password: ${{ secrets.PYPI_PASSWORD }}
+        # DEBUG:
+        password: ${{ secrets.TEST_PYPI_API_TOKEN }}
+        repository_url: https://test.pypi.org/legacy/
diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..92148bd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+dist/
+build/
+
+*.whl
+*.egg-info
+__pycache__
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1ce1d64
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+# this ensures builds are done reliably
+[build-system]
+requires = ["setuptools>=40.8.0", "setuptools_scm[toml]", "wheel"]
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..93edf6b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+from setuptools import setup, find_packages, find_namespace_packages
+import pathlib
+
+here = pathlib.Path(__file__).parent.resolve()
+
+# workaround a bug introduced by pyproject.toml
+# https://github.com/pypa/pip/issues/7953#issuecomment-645133255
+import site, sys; site.ENABLE_USER_SITE = True
+
+setup(
+  name='spinalcordtoolbox-data-deepseg_gm_models',
+  description='Part of https://github.com/neuropoly/spinalcordtoolbox',
+  long_description=(here / 'README.txt').read_text(encoding='utf-8'),
+  long_description_content_type='text/plain',
+  author='Neuropoly',
+  author_email='neuropoly@googlegroups.com',
+  url='https://spinalcordtoolbox.com/',
+  project_urls={
+      'Source': 'https://github.com/sct-data/deepseg_gm_models',
+      #'Documentation': '',
+  },
+  #license='CC-BY-NC', ??
+  #license_files=[ ... ] # TODO?
+
+  packages=find_namespace_packages('src/'),
+  package_dir={"":"src/"},
+
+  # with setuptools_scm, means it includes non-python files if they're under git
+  include_package_data=True,
+
+  # with setuptools_scm, get the version out of the most recent git tag.
+  # the tags must be formatted as semver.
+  use_scm_version=True,
+
+  # pyproject.toml::build-system.requires is supposed to supersede this, but it's still very new so we duplicate it.
+  setup_requires=[
+    'setuptools',
+    'setuptools_scm[toml]',
+    'wheel',
+  ],
+
+  zip_safe=False, # guarantees that importlib.resources.path() is safe
+)
+
diff --git a/src/spinalcordtoolbox/data/deepseg/gm/__init__.py b/src/spinalcordtoolbox/data/deepseg/gm/__init__.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ead4c67
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/spinalcordtoolbox/data/deepseg/gm/__init__.py
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+# empty __init__.py to enable importlib.resources
+# see < TODO >
diff --git a/challenge_model.hdf5 b/src/spinalcordtoolbox/data/deepseg/gm/challenge_model.hdf5
similarity index 100%
rename from challenge_model.hdf5
rename to src/spinalcordtoolbox/data/deepseg/gm/challenge_model.hdf5
diff --git a/challenge_model.json b/src/spinalcordtoolbox/data/deepseg/gm/challenge_model.json
similarity index 100%
rename from challenge_model.json
rename to src/spinalcordtoolbox/data/deepseg/gm/challenge_model.json
diff --git a/large_model.hdf5 b/src/spinalcordtoolbox/data/deepseg/gm/large_model.hdf5
similarity index 100%
rename from large_model.hdf5
rename to src/spinalcordtoolbox/data/deepseg/gm/large_model.hdf5
diff --git a/large_model.json b/src/spinalcordtoolbox/data/deepseg/gm/large_model.json
similarity index 100%
rename from large_model.json
rename to src/spinalcordtoolbox/data/deepseg/gm/large_model.json