diff --git a/.flake8 b/.flake8
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b266d8a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.flake8
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+# TODO: incorporate this into pyproject.toml if flake8 supports it in the future.
+# See https://github.com/PyCQA/flake8/issues/234
+[flake8]
+# see https://pycodestyle.readthedocs.io/en/latest/intro.html#error-codes
+# for error codes. The ones we ignore are:
+#  W503: line break before binary operator
+#  W504: line break after binary operator
+#  E203: whitespace before ':' (which is contrary to pep8?)
+#  E731: do not assign a lambda expression, use a def
+#  E501: Line too long (black enforces this for us)
+#
+# flake8-bugbear runs extra checks. Its error codes are described at
+# https://github.com/PyCQA/flake8-bugbear#list-of-warnings
+#  B019: Use of functools.lru_cache or functools.cache on methods can lead to memory leaks
+#  B023: Functions defined inside a loop must not use variables redefined in the loop
+#  B024: Abstract base class with no abstract method.
+
+ignore=W503,W504,E203,E731,E501,B019,B023,B024
+