diff --git a/.markdownlintignore b/.markdownlintignore
index e69de29b..6163a50e 100644
--- a/.markdownlintignore
+++ b/.markdownlintignore
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+# CHANGELOG.md is generated by the semantic-release action and does not
+# follow the markdown standards set by this project
+docs/CHANGELOG.md
+
+# ignore _site path of jekyll that is created when developing documentation locally
+docs/_site/**