diff --git a/base/PKGBUILD b/base/PKGBUILD
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..712e7ce9043
--- /dev/null
+++ b/base/PKGBUILD
@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+# Maintainer: Christoph Reiter <reiter.christoph@gmail.com>
+
+pkgname=base
+pkgver=1
+pkgrel=2
+pkgdesc='Minimal package set to define a basic MSYS2 installation'
+url='https://www.msys2.org'
+arch=('any')
+license=('GPL')
+depends=(
+  'bash'
+  'bash-completion'
+  'bsdcpio'
+  'bsdtar'
+  'bzip2'
+  'coreutils'
+  'curl'
+  'dash'
+  'dtc'
+  'file'
+  'filesystem'
+  'findutils'
+  'flex'
+  'gawk'
+  'gcc-libs'
+  'getent'
+  'getopt'
+  'grep'
+  'gzip'
+  'inetutils'
+  'info'
+  'less'
+  'libargp'
+  'lndir'
+  'mintty'
+  'msys2-keyring'
+  'msys2-launcher'
+  'msys2-runtime'
+  'ncurses'
+  'pacman'
+  'pacman-mirrors'
+  'pactoys'
+  'pax'
+  'pkgfile'
+  'rebase'
+  'sed'
+  'tftp-hpa'
+  'time'
+  'ttyrec'
+  'tzcode'
+  'util-linux'
+  'wget'
+  'which'
+  'zstd'
+)
+source=('README.md')
+sha256sums=('46702e24eebde5cf8fbb3d412a524736ef10d16e9c85efa0fc8d256cccf00484')
diff --git a/base/README.md b/base/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..70f9b2a0153
--- /dev/null
+++ b/base/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+This meta package depends on all packages needed for a basic MSYS2 installation
+and is used by the msys2-installer.
\ No newline at end of file