diff --git a/docs/langref.rst b/docs/langref.rst
index 8acc2b4ef2..6fbe3610de 100644
--- a/docs/langref.rst
+++ b/docs/langref.rst
@@ -633,11 +633,35 @@ A few instructions have variants that take immediate operands (e.g.,
 :inst:`band` / :inst:`band_imm`), but in general an instruction is required to
 load a constant into an SSA value.
 
+.. autoinst:: select
+
+Constant materialization
+------------------------
+
 .. autoinst:: iconst
 .. autoinst:: f32const
 .. autoinst:: f64const
 .. autoinst:: vconst
-.. autoinst:: select
+
+Live range splitting
+--------------------
+
+Cretonne's register allocator assigns each SSA value to a register or a spill
+slot on the stack for its entire live range. Since the live range of an SSA
+value can be quite large, it is sometimes beneficial to split the live range
+into smaller parts.
+
+A live range is split by creating new SSA values that are copies or the
+original value or each other. The copies are created by inserting :inst:`copy`,
+:inst:`spill`, or :inst:`fill` instructions, depending on whether the values
+are assigned to registers or stack slots.
+
+This approach permits SSA form to be preserved throughout the register
+allocation pass and beyond.
+
+.. autoinst:: copy
+.. autoinst:: spill
+.. autoinst:: fill
 
 Vector operations
 -----------------
diff --git a/lib/cretonne/meta/cretonne/base.py b/lib/cretonne/meta/cretonne/base.py
index f507526626..1edbce9ecd 100644
--- a/lib/cretonne/meta/cretonne/base.py
+++ b/lib/cretonne/meta/cretonne/base.py
@@ -204,6 +204,40 @@ select = Instruction(
         """,
         ins=(c, x, y), outs=a)
 
+x = Operand('x', Any)
+
+copy = Instruction(
+        'copy', r"""
+        Register-register copy.
+
+        This instruction copies its input, preserving the value type.
+
+        A pure SSA-form program does not need to copy values, but this
+        instruction is useful for representing intermediate stages during
+        instruction transformations, and the register allocator needs a way of
+        representing register copies.
+        """,
+        ins=x, outs=a)
+
+spill = Instruction(
+        'spill', r"""
+        Spill a register value to a stack slot.
+
+        This instruction behaves exactly like :inst:`copy`, but the result
+        value is assigned to a spill slot.
+        """,
+        ins=x, outs=a)
+
+fill = Instruction(
+        'fill', r"""
+        Load a register value from a stack slot.
+
+        This instruction behaves exactly like :inst:`copy`, but the input
+        value is assigned to a spill slot.
+        """,
+        ins=x, outs=a)
+
+
 #
 # Vector operations
 #