diff --git a/checkstyle.xml b/checkstyle.xml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..885f79311
--- /dev/null
+++ b/checkstyle.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<!DOCTYPE module PUBLIC
+    "-//Puppy Crawl//DTD Check Configuration 1.3//EN"
+    "http://www.puppycrawl.com/dtds/configuration_1_3.dtd">
+
+<module name="Checker">
+	<module name="TreeWalker">
+		<module name="AvoidStarImport" />
+		<module name="LineLength">
+			<property name="max" value="250" />
+		</module>
+		<module name="RedundantImport" />
+		<module name="TodoComment" />
+		<module name="TodoComment">
+			<property name="format" value="FIXME" />
+		</module>
+		<module name="UnusedImports" />
+	</module>
+</module>
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 5596096e1..1b1b3501a 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -435,7 +435,9 @@
         		<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
         		<artifactId>maven-checkstyle-plugin</artifactId>
         		<version>2.10</version>
-        		<!-- custom configuration goes here -->
+        		<configuration>
+        			<configLocation>checkstyle.xml</configLocation>
+        		</configuration>
       		</plugin>
 		</plugins>
     </reporting>