diff --git a/src/recommendationservice/compile_proto.sh b/src/recommendationservice/compile_proto.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..840a055
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/recommendationservice/compile_proto.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+# script to compile python protos
+#
+# requires gRPC tools:
+#   python -m pip install grpcio-tools googleapis-common-protos
+
+python -m grpc_tools.protoc -I../../pb --python_out=. --grpc_python_out=. ../../pb/demo.proto