diff --git a/fs/btrfs/block-rsv.c b/fs/btrfs/block-rsv.c
index d07bd41a7c1e..e46dc3688983 100644
--- a/fs/btrfs/block-rsv.c
+++ b/fs/btrfs/block-rsv.c
@@ -6,6 +6,98 @@
 #include "space-info.h"
 #include "transaction.h"
 
+/*
+ * HOW DO BLOCK RESERVES WORK
+ *
+ *   Think of block_rsv's as buckets for logically grouped metadata
+ *   reservations.  Each block_rsv has a ->size and a ->reserved.  ->size is
+ *   how large we want our block rsv to be, ->reserved is how much space is
+ *   currently reserved for this block reserve.
+ *
+ *   ->failfast exists for the truncate case, and is described below.
+ *
+ * NORMAL OPERATION
+ *
+ *   -> Reserve
+ *     Entrance: btrfs_block_rsv_add, btrfs_block_rsv_refill
+ *
+ *     We call into btrfs_reserve_metadata_bytes() with our bytes, which is
+ *     accounted for in space_info->bytes_may_use, and then add the bytes to
+ *     ->reserved, and ->size in the case of btrfs_block_rsv_add.
+ *
+ *     ->size is an over-estimation of how much we may use for a particular
+ *     operation.
+ *
+ *   -> Use
+ *     Entrance: btrfs_use_block_rsv
+ *
+ *     When we do a btrfs_alloc_tree_block() we call into btrfs_use_block_rsv()
+ *     to determine the appropriate block_rsv to use, and then verify that
+ *     ->reserved has enough space for our tree block allocation.  Once
+ *     successful we subtract fs_info->nodesize from ->reserved.
+ *
+ *   -> Finish
+ *     Entrance: btrfs_block_rsv_release
+ *
+ *     We are finished with our operation, subtract our individual reservation
+ *     from ->size, and then subtract ->size from ->reserved and free up the
+ *     excess if there is any.
+ *
+ *     There is some logic here to refill the delayed refs rsv or the global rsv
+ *     as needed, otherwise the excess is subtracted from
+ *     space_info->bytes_may_use.
+ *
+ * TYPES OF BLOCK RESERVES
+ *
+ * BLOCK_RSV_TRANS, BLOCK_RSV_DELOPS, BLOCK_RSV_CHUNK
+ *   These behave normally, as described above, just within the confines of the
+ *   lifetime of their particular operation (transaction for the whole trans
+ *   handle lifetime, for example).
+ *
+ * BLOCK_RSV_GLOBAL
+ *   It is impossible to properly account for all the space that may be required
+ *   to make our extent tree updates.  This block reserve acts as an overflow
+ *   buffer in case our delayed refs reserve does not reserve enough space to
+ *   update the extent tree.
+ *
+ *   We can steal from this in some cases as well, notably on evict() or
+ *   truncate() in order to help users recover from ENOSPC conditions.
+ *
+ * BLOCK_RSV_DELALLOC
+ *   The individual item sizes are determined by the per-inode size
+ *   calculations, which are described with the delalloc code.  This is pretty
+ *   straightforward, it's just the calculation of ->size encodes a lot of
+ *   different items, and thus it gets used when updating inodes, inserting file
+ *   extents, and inserting checksums.
+ *
+ * BLOCK_RSV_DELREFS
+ *   We keep a running tally of how many delayed refs we have on the system.
+ *   We assume each one of these delayed refs are going to use a full
+ *   reservation.  We use the transaction items and pre-reserve space for every
+ *   operation, and use this reservation to refill any gap between ->size and
+ *   ->reserved that may exist.
+ *
+ *   From there it's straightforward, removing a delayed ref means we remove its
+ *   count from ->size and free up reservations as necessary.  Since this is
+ *   the most dynamic block reserve in the system, we will try to refill this
+ *   block reserve first with any excess returned by any other block reserve.
+ *
+ * BLOCK_RSV_EMPTY
+ *   This is the fallback block reserve to make us try to reserve space if we
+ *   don't have a specific bucket for this allocation.  It is mostly used for
+ *   updating the device tree and such, since that is a separate pool we're
+ *   content to just reserve space from the space_info on demand.
+ *
+ * BLOCK_RSV_TEMP
+ *   This is used by things like truncate and iput.  We will temporarily
+ *   allocate a block reserve, set it to some size, and then truncate bytes
+ *   until we have no space left.  With ->failfast set we'll simply return
+ *   ENOSPC from btrfs_use_block_rsv() to signal that we need to unwind and try
+ *   to make a new reservation.  This is because these operations are
+ *   unbounded, so we want to do as much work as we can, and then back off and
+ *   re-reserve.
+ */
+
 static u64 block_rsv_release_bytes(struct btrfs_fs_info *fs_info,
 				    struct btrfs_block_rsv *block_rsv,
 				    struct btrfs_block_rsv *dest, u64 num_bytes,