diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..1bbb6d063763c75ac86ad48ff875b08eb1782ed9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+**__pycache__/
+.vscode/*
+*.pyc
+
+# contains data for local tests
+.coverage