diff --git a/benchmarks/benchmark_pauli_operations.py b/benchmarks/benchmark_pauli_operations.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9021980
--- /dev/null
+++ b/benchmarks/benchmark_pauli_operations.py
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+import numpy as np
+
+from benchmarks.pauli_operations import *
+
+
+def main():
+    pass
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    main()
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/benchmarks/test_pauli_operations.py b/benchmarks/test_pauli_operations.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..af76cca
--- /dev/null
+++ b/benchmarks/test_pauli_operations.py
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+import pytest
+import numpy as np
+
+from pauli_operations import *
+
+
+def test_sparse_pauli_string():
+    assert PauliComposer(PauliString("IZ")).sparse_pauli() == SparsePauliString(1.0, np.array([0,1]), np.array([1.0, 1.0])) 
+
+# TODO test correspondance to strings made from dense mutliplications
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    pytest.main([__file__])
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/requirements-dev.txt b/requirements-dev.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c813e86
--- /dev/null
+++ b/requirements-dev.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+numpy
+scipy
+numba
+pytest
\ No newline at end of file