diff --git a/.git-blame-ignore-revs b/.git-blame-ignore-revs
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..c3a82120
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.git-blame-ignore-revs
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+# ensure all recent changes were black-formatted (prep for 2.4.0)
+d7058a5a8e489a9213ed499e999bb226397bc708
+
diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 7b0ba78a..bd2d735a 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -10,3 +10,7 @@ __pycache__
 *~
 dist/
 
+# auto-generated files
+_version.py
+
+