diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 7815b08..2fb9600 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ before_script:
   - export PATH="$TRAVIS_BUILD_DIR/build:$TRAVIS_BUILD_DIR/vendor/bin:$PATH"
 
 script:
-  - find . -not \( -path './vendor' -prune \) -type f -name '*.php' -print0 | xargs -0 -I file php -l file > /dev/null
+  - phpcs --standard=phpcs.xml "$TRAVIS_BUILD_DIR"
 
 after_success:
   - deploy-phpdoc-branch.sh
diff --git a/composer.json b/composer.json
index 14f174d..5894970 100644
--- a/composer.json
+++ b/composer.json
@@ -29,7 +29,8 @@
         "symfony/yaml" : "^2.3"
     },
     "require-dev" : {
-        "phpdocumentor/phpdocumentor": "^2.8"
+        "phpdocumentor/phpdocumentor": "^2.8",
+        "squizlabs/php_codesniffer": "^2.4"
     },
     "autoload": {
         "psr-0": {
diff --git a/index.php b/index.php
index 40b811a..a4e0fb0 100644
--- a/index.php
+++ b/index.php
@@ -1,4 +1,6 @@
 <?php
+// @codingStandardsIgnoreFile
+
 // load dependencies
 require_once(__DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php');
 
@@ -11,7 +13,7 @@ $pico = new Pico(
 );
 
 // override configuration?
-// $pico->setConfig(array());
+//$pico->setConfig(array());
 
 // run application
 echo $pico->run();
diff --git a/phpcs.xml b/phpcs.xml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6e8d640
--- /dev/null
+++ b/phpcs.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+<?xml version="1.0"?>
+<ruleset name="Pico">
+    <description>
+        Pico's coding standards mainly base on the PHP-FIG PSR-2 standard,
+        but without the MissingNamespace sniff.
+    </description>
+
+    <!--
+        Exclude build/ and vendor/ dirs as well as minified JavaScript files
+    -->
+    <exclude-pattern type="relative">^build/</exclude-pattern>
+    <exclude-pattern type="relative">^vendor/</exclude-pattern>
+    <exclude-pattern>*.min.js</exclude-pattern>
+
+    <!--
+        Check files for PHP syntax errors
+    -->
+    <config name="php_path" value="php"/>
+    <rule ref="Generic.PHP.Syntax"/>
+
+    <!--
+        Never use deprecated functions,
+        as they will be removed in future PHP releases
+    -->
+    <rule ref="Generic.PHP.DeprecatedFunctions"/>
+
+    <!--
+        Warn about structures which affect performance negatively
+    -->
+    <rule ref="Generic.CodeAnalysis.ForLoopWithTestFunctionCall"/>
+
+    <!--
+        Pico follows PHP-FIG PSR-2 Coding Style,
+        but doesn't use formal namespaces for historic reasons
+    -->
+    <rule ref="PSR2">
+        <exclude name="PSR1.Classes.ClassDeclaration.MissingNamespace"/>
+    </rule>
+</ruleset>
\ No newline at end of file