diff --git a/docs/source/developer/release.md b/docs/source/developer/release.md
index 5f67ae97..3df24cce 100644
--- a/docs/source/developer/release.md
+++ b/docs/source/developer/release.md
@@ -7,12 +7,18 @@
 
 1. Create a new branch and open a PR on GitHub which will run all actions
 
-1. Apply any fixes to make the actions pass 
+1. Apply any fixes to make the actions pass
+
+1. Clean your local directory. This will prevent any files not under source control from being built into the distribution.
+
+   ```bash
+   git clean -f -x 
+   ```
 
 1. Build the wheel and source distributions:
 
     ```bash
-    python setup.py bdist_wheel sdist
+    python setup.py clean bdist_wheel sdist
     ```
 
 1. Upload to Test PyPi