diff --git a/changes/2796.chore.rst b/changes/2796.chore.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..0ef1b8d31e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changes/2796.chore.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+The docs environment is now built with ``astroid`` pinned to a version less than 4. This allows the docs to build in CI.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 8d73485dac..6fbcd1991e 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -103,6 +103,7 @@ docs = [
     'numcodecs[msgpack]',
     'rich',
     's3fs',
+    'astroid<4'
 ]
 
 
@@ -427,3 +428,6 @@ directory = 'changes'
 filename = "docs/release-notes.rst"
 underlines = ["-", "~", "^"]
 issue_format = ":issue:`{issue}`"
+
+[tool.codespell]
+ignore-words-list = "astroid"