diff --git a/.github/workflows/python_test.yml b/.github/workflows/python_test.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..36e2643
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/workflows/python_test.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+name: Python Unit Tests
+
+on:
+  push:
+    branches: [ main ]
+  pull_request:
+    branches: [ main ]
+  workflow_dispatch:
+
+jobs:
+  test:
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    strategy:
+      matrix:
+        python-version: ['3.10', '3.11', '3.12', '3.13']
+      fail-fast: false
+
+    steps:
+    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
+
+    - name: Set up Python ${{ matrix.python-version }}
+      uses: actions/setup-python@v5
+      with:
+        python-version: ${{ matrix.python-version }}
+
+    - name: Install uv
+      run: |
+        curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
+        echo "$HOME/.cargo/bin" >> $GITHUB_PATH
+
+    - name: Install dependencies
+      run: |
+        uv sync
+
+    - name: Run tests
+      run: |
+        uv run -m pytest src -v
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 4505872..6dc5dae 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -314,3 +314,8 @@ It's also possible to pass the result of SQL query as a CSV file, e.g., an Athen
    ...
 ```
 
+## Part Row Group Test
+
+This repository also includes a tool to check whether the row groups in a given table part parquet file have strictly increasing min/max values - see `util/are_part_min_max_increasing.py`. 
+
+Note that this tool only checks that, within a single `.parquet` file, each row group's `.min` is greater than the previous row group's `.max`; further this is restricted to a single parquet file - the table as a whole is not checked.
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..57b29b1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+[project]
+name = "cc-index-table"
+version = "0.1.0"
+description = "Tools for working with Common Crawl index tables."
+requires-python = ">=3.12"
+dependencies = [
+    "boto3>=1.40.61",
+    "pyarrow>=22.0.0",
+    "pytest>=8.4.2",
+    "tqdm>=4.67.1",
+]
diff --git a/src/util/__init__.py b/src/util/__init__.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/src/util/are_part_min_max_increasing.py b/src/util/are_part_min_max_increasing.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2741b89
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/util/are_part_min_max_increasing.py
@@ -0,0 +1,87 @@
+from collections import defaultdict
+
+import pyarrow.parquet as pq
+import argparse
+
+from urllib.parse import urlparse
+import boto3
+import gzip
+from tqdm.auto import tqdm
+
+
+def are_parquet_file_row_groups_min_max_ordered(pf: pq.ParquetFile, column_name: str) -> bool:
+    sort_column_index = next(i for i, name in enumerate(pf.schema.names)
+                             if name == column_name)
+
+    # keep track of min/max in this ParquetFile
+    whole_min = None
+    whole_max = None
+    prev_max = None
+    for row_group_index in range(pf.num_row_groups):
+        row_group = pf.metadata.row_group(row_group_index)
+        column = row_group.column(sort_column_index)
+        if prev_max is not None and prev_max > column.statistics.min:
+            print(f"row group {row_group_index} min is not strictly increasing w.r.t previous row group max on {column_name}: '{column.statistics.min}' <= '{prev_max}' ; stopping")
+            return False
+        whole_min = column.statistics.min if whole_min is None else min(column.statistics.min, whole_min)
+        whole_max = column.statistics.max if whole_max is None else max(column.statistics.max, whole_max)
+        prev_max = column.statistics.max
+    return True
+
+
+def are_all_parts_min_max_ordered(file_or_s3_url_list: list[str], sort_column_name: str) -> bool:
+    is_sorted = True
+    status = defaultdict(int)
+    with tqdm(file_or_s3_url_list) as pbar:
+        for file_or_url in pbar:
+            pf = pq.ParquetFile(file_or_url)
+            this_is_sorted = are_parquet_file_row_groups_min_max_ordered(pf, column_name=sort_column_name)
+            if not this_is_sorted:
+                print(
+                    f"Row groups are *internally* not ordered by min/max in file {file_or_url}"
+                )
+                is_sorted = False
+                status['internally_unsorted'] += 1
+
+            pbar.set_postfix(status)
+    return is_sorted
+
+
+def is_gzip(content: bytes) -> bool:
+    return content[:2] == b'\x1f\x8b'
+
+
+def read_file_list(path_or_url: str, prefix: str) -> list[str]:
+    parsed = urlparse(path_or_url)
+    if parsed.scheme == "s3":
+        s3 = boto3.client("s3")
+        bucket = parsed.netloc
+        key = parsed.path.lstrip("/")
+        obj = s3.get_object(Bucket=bucket, Key=key)
+        content = obj["Body"].read()
+    else:
+        with open(path_or_url, "rb") as f:
+            content = f.read()
+
+    if is_gzip(content):
+        content = gzip.decompress(content)
+    lines = content.decode("utf-8").split("\n")
+    return [prefix + line.strip() for line in lines if len(line.strip()) > 0]
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Check if row groups within parquet files have strictly increasing non-overlapping min/max ranges. Exit code is 0 if sorted, 1 if not sorted.")
+    parser.add_argument("files_or_s3_urls_file", type=str, help="path or s3:// URI to a text file containing a list of paths, to check; used in combination with --prefix to recover individual file paths.")
+    parser.add_argument("--prefix", type=str, default="s3://commoncrawl/", help="Prefix to prepend to entries read from the file (default: 's3://commoncrawl/')")
+    parser.add_argument("--column", type=str, default="url_surtkey", help="Column name to check against (default: 'url_surtkey')")
+
+    args = parser.parse_args()
+
+    files = read_file_list(args.files_or_s3_urls_file, prefix=args.prefix)
+    is_sorted = are_all_parts_min_max_ordered(files, sort_column_name=args.column)
+    if is_sorted:
+        print("✅ Files are sorted")
+        exit(0)
+    else:
+        print("❌ Files are NOT sorted")
+        exit(1)
diff --git a/src/util/test/__init__.py b/src/util/test/__init__.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/src/util/test/test_are_part_min_max_increasing.py b/src/util/test/test_are_part_min_max_increasing.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..08a6ad3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/util/test/test_are_part_min_max_increasing.py
@@ -0,0 +1,93 @@
+import random
+from unittest.mock import MagicMock, patch
+
+from util.are_part_min_max_increasing import are_parquet_file_row_groups_min_max_ordered, are_all_parts_min_max_ordered
+
+
+def _create_mock_parquet_file(column_name: str, row_groups_stats: list[tuple[str, str]]):
+    mock_pf = MagicMock()
+    mock_pf.schema.names = [column_name]
+    mock_pf.num_row_groups = len(row_groups_stats)
+
+    mock_row_groups = []
+    for min_val, max_val in row_groups_stats:
+        mock_row_group = MagicMock()
+        mock_column = MagicMock()
+        mock_column.statistics.min = min_val
+        mock_column.statistics.max = max_val
+        mock_row_group.column.return_value = mock_column
+        mock_row_groups.append(mock_row_group)
+
+    mock_pf.metadata.row_group.side_effect = lambda i: mock_row_groups[i]
+    return mock_pf
+
+
+def test_single_row_group_sorted():
+    mock_pf = _create_mock_parquet_file('url_surtkey', [('a', 'b')])
+    is_sorted = are_parquet_file_row_groups_min_max_ordered(mock_pf, column_name='url_surtkey')
+    assert is_sorted
+
+
+def test_row_groups_sorted():
+    all_row_groups_stats = [('a', 'b'), ('c', 'd'), ('e', 'f'), ('g', 'h')]
+    for n in range(1, len(all_row_groups_stats)):
+        row_groups_stats = all_row_groups_stats[:n]
+        mock_pf = _create_mock_parquet_file('url_surtkey', row_groups_stats)
+        is_sorted = are_parquet_file_row_groups_min_max_ordered(mock_pf, column_name='url_surtkey')
+        assert is_sorted
+
+
+def test_row_groups_unsorted():
+    all_row_groups_stats = [('a', 'b'), ('c', 'd'), ('e', 'f'), ('g', 'h')]
+    count = 0
+    while count < 100:
+        for n in range(2, len(all_row_groups_stats)):
+            row_groups_stats = all_row_groups_stats[:n].copy()
+            random.shuffle(row_groups_stats)
+            if row_groups_stats == all_row_groups_stats[:n]:
+                # shuffle resulted in same order, try again
+                continue
+
+            mock_pf = _create_mock_parquet_file('url_surtkey', row_groups_stats)
+            is_sorted = are_parquet_file_row_groups_min_max_ordered(mock_pf, column_name='url_surtkey')
+            assert not is_sorted
+
+        count += 1
+
+
+def test_row_groups_overlapping():
+    row_groups = [('a', 'c'), ('b', 'd')]
+    mock_pf = _create_mock_parquet_file('url_surtkey', row_groups)
+    is_sorted = are_parquet_file_row_groups_min_max_ordered(mock_pf, column_name='url_surtkey')
+    assert not is_sorted
+
+
+def test_ordered_files_sorted():
+    files_config = {
+        '/data/a': [('aaa', 'bbb'), ('bbc', 'ccc')],
+        '/data/b': [('ccd', 'ddd'), ('dde', 'eee')],
+        '/data/c': [('eef', 'fff'), ('ffg', 'ggg')],
+    }
+
+    def mock_parquet_file(path):
+        return _create_mock_parquet_file('url_surtkey', files_config[path])
+
+    with patch('pyarrow.parquet.ParquetFile', side_effect=mock_parquet_file):
+        result = are_all_parts_min_max_ordered(['/data/a', '/data/b', '/data/c'], 'url_surtkey')
+        assert result
+
+
+def test_ordered_files_unsorted():
+    files_config = {
+        '/data/a': [('aaa', 'bbb'), ('bbc', 'ccc')],
+        '/data/b': [('ccd', 'ddd'), ('dde', 'eee')],
+        '/data/c': [('eef', 'fff'), ('ffg', 'ggg')],
+    }
+
+    def mock_parquet_file(path):
+        return _create_mock_parquet_file('url_surtkey', files_config[path])
+
+    with patch('pyarrow.parquet.ParquetFile', side_effect=mock_parquet_file):
+        result = are_all_parts_min_max_ordered(['/data/a', '/data/c', '/data/b'], 'url_surtkey')
+        assert result  # we don't care about the order of files
+