diff --git a/GNUmakefile b/GNUmakefile
index 73fb646..94db4e6 100644
--- a/GNUmakefile
+++ b/GNUmakefile
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 build.mk: literate-build.org
 	HOME=".emacs-local" emacs -quick -batch \
-	    -eval "(package-initialize)" \
+	    -eval "(setq vc-handled-backends nil)" \
 	    -load ob-tangle \
 	    -eval "(org-babel-tangle-file \"$<\"))"
 
diff --git a/literate-build.org b/literate-build.org
index 81abcd8..69967af 100644
--- a/literate-build.org
+++ b/literate-build.org
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ I specify that =build.mk= file should depend on /this/ file ({{{input-file}}}) a
 #+begin_src makefile-gmake :tangle GNUmakefile
 build.mk: literate-build.org
 	HOME=".emacs-local" emacs -quick -batch \
-	    -eval "(package-initialize)" \
+	    -eval "(setq vc-handled-backends nil)" \
 	    -load ob-tangle \
 	    -eval "(org-babel-tangle-file \"$<\"))"
 #+end_src
@@ -215,6 +215,12 @@ Use HTML5 and all its fancy elements.
 (setq org-html-doctype "html5")
 #+end_src
 
+Disable VC. When I run this from a ~guix shell --pure~ I don't have git available and VC starts looking for it and throwing errors all over the place.
+
+#+begin_src emacs-lisp
+(setq vc-handled-backends nil)
+#+end_src
+
 ** Projects
 
 Here come the actual projects.