diff --git a/.git_archival.txt b/.git_archival.txt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..7c510094
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.git_archival.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+node: $Format:%H$
+node-date: $Format:%cI$
+describe-name: $Format:%(describe:tags=true,match=*[0-9]*)$
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..00a7b00c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+.git_archival.txt  export-subst
diff --git a/changelog/315.bugfix.rst b/changelog/315.bugfix.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..785db0fb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog/315.bugfix.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Source archives created by ``git archive`` (including GitHub's "Source code" downloads) now carry version information, so building pluggy from them no longer fails with a missing version.