diff --git a/.dockerignore b/.dockerignore
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..ab452ecf2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.dockerignore
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+# out-of-tree builds usually go here. This helps improving performance of uploading
+# the build context to the docker image build server
+/build
+
+# in-tree builds
+/deps