diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
index d0c3b3e9cc..e804e5213e 100644
--- a/.gitattributes
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -2,4 +2,9 @@
 ports/** -linguist-detectable
 
 # Declare files that will always have LF line endings on checkout.
-scripts/ci.baseline.txt text eol=lf
\ No newline at end of file
+scripts/ci.baseline.txt text eol=lf
+
+# Stored patch files may legitimately contain whitespace that represents the
+# patched content rather than the patch file itself.
+*.diff -whitespace
+*.patch -whitespace