diff --git a/.github/dependabot.yml b/.github/dependabot.yml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e195b86a3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/dependabot.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+#################################
+# Dependabot Configuration File #
+#################################
+
+# current Github-native version of Dependabot
+version: 2
+
+updates:
+  # Enable version updates for Python libraries in `requirements_dev.txt`
+  # These can be updated more frequently than those in `requirements_prod.txt` since
+  # they are not pinned by the Airflow constraints file.
+  - package-ecosystem: pip
+    directory: /
+    # Check for updates once a month
+    schedule:
+      interval: monthly
+    labels:
+      - "💻 aspect: code"
+      - "🧰 goal: internal improvement"
+      - "🟩 priority: low"
+      - "🐍 tech: python"
+      - dependencies
diff --git a/justfile b/justfile
index b6468d50a..8d6c0d767 100644
--- a/justfile
+++ b/justfile
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ check-py-version:
 
 # Install dependencies into the current environment
 install: check-py-version
-    pip install -r requirements.txt -r requirements_dev.txt
+    pip install -r requirements_tooling.txt -r requirements_dev.txt
     pre-commit install
 
 # Create the .env file from the template
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index a57a4d2ac..000000000
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,5 +0,0 @@
-# for local dev tooling only
-black==22.3.0
-flake8==3.9.2
-isort==5.9.3
-pre-commit==2.14.0
diff --git a/requirements_tooling.txt b/requirements_tooling.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..8f2382bab
--- /dev/null
+++ b/requirements_tooling.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+# For local dev tooling only, this is separate from requirements_dev.txt because these
+# libraries are not needed within the built docker container in any environment.
+black==22.3.0
+flake8==3.9.2
+isort==5.9.3
+pre-commit==2.14.0