diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index 8feaa01fb12..88b3ef299e3 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ Base AMI (Ubuntu)".
 Start by cloning the Determined repo:
 
 ```sh
-git clone git@github.com:determined-ai/determined.git
+git clone --recurse-submodules git@github.com:determined-ai/determined.git
 ```
 
 #### Prerequisites
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 0c8f8880a8d..773be591626 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ det deploy local cluster-up --no-gpu
 # Access web UI at localhost:8080. By default, "determined" user accepts a blank password.
 
 # Navigate to a Determined example.
-git clone https://github.com/determined-ai/determined
+git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/determined-ai/determined
 cd determined/examples/computer_vision/cifar10_pytorch
 
 # Submit job to train a single model on a single node.