diff --git a/docs/source/devguide/workflow.rst b/docs/source/devguide/workflow.rst
index 037b8b68af..4c45df5e6c 100644
--- a/docs/source/devguide/workflow.rst
+++ b/docs/source/devguide/workflow.rst
@@ -63,7 +63,7 @@ features and bug fixes. The general steps for contributing are as follows:
 
    .. code-block:: sh
 
-       git clone git@github.com:yourusername/openmc.git
+       git clone --recurse-submodules git@github.com:yourusername/openmc.git
        cd openmc
        git checkout -b newbranch develop
 
diff --git a/docs/source/quickinstall.rst b/docs/source/quickinstall.rst
index 20ecc6373a..def7ab9226 100644
--- a/docs/source/quickinstall.rst
+++ b/docs/source/quickinstall.rst
@@ -109,7 +109,7 @@ commands in a terminal:
 
 .. code-block:: sh
 
-    git clone https://github.com/openmc-dev/openmc.git
+    git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/openmc-dev/openmc.git
     cd openmc
     mkdir build && cd build
     cmake ..
diff --git a/docs/source/usersguide/install.rst b/docs/source/usersguide/install.rst
index 8ca7e0b351..66440a3c37 100644
--- a/docs/source/usersguide/install.rst
+++ b/docs/source/usersguide/install.rst
@@ -179,7 +179,7 @@ with GitHub since this involves setting up ssh_ keys. With git installed and
 setup, the following command will download the full source code from the GitHub
 repository::
 
-    git clone https://github.com/openmc-dev/openmc.git
+    git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/openmc-dev/openmc.git
 
 By default, the cloned repository will be set to the development branch. To
 switch to the source of the latest stable release, run the following commands::
diff --git a/vendor/vendor.txt b/vendor/vendor.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index 4291ee3756..0000000000
--- a/vendor/vendor.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,4 +0,0 @@
-gsl-lite==0.34.0
-pugixml==1.8
-xtensor==0.20.8
-xtl==0.6.5