diff --git a/.github/workflows/release_prep.sh b/.github/workflows/release_prep.sh
index a68486224..fb3c90dbe 100755
--- a/.github/workflows/release_prep.sh
+++ b/.github/workflows/release_prep.sh
@@ -8,6 +8,8 @@ TAG=${GITHUB_REF_NAME}
 # The prefix is chosen to match what GitHub generates for source archives
 PREFIX="rules_js-${TAG:1}"
 ARCHIVE="rules_js-$TAG.tar.gz"
+# Don't include e2e or examples in the distribution artifact, to reduce size
+echo -n "e2e export-ignore\nexamples export-ignore" > .git/info/attributes
 git archive --format=tar --prefix="${PREFIX}/" "${TAG}" | gzip > "$ARCHIVE"
 SHA=$(shasum -a 256 "$ARCHIVE" | awk '{print $1}')