diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 9862ebed7..65192b5e8 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -26,11 +26,15 @@ html: venv
 htmlview: html
 	$(PYTHON) -c "import os, webbrowser; webbrowser.open('file://' + os.path.realpath('build/index.html'))"
 
+.PHONY: ensure-sphinx-autobuild
+ensure-sphinx-autobuild: venv
+	$(VENVDIR)/bin/sphinx-autobuild --version > /dev/null || $(VENVDIR)/bin/python3 -m pip install sphinx-autobuild
+
 ## htmllive       to rebuild and reload HTML files in your browser
 .PHONY: htmllive
 htmllive: SPHINXBUILD = $(VENVDIR)/bin/sphinx-autobuild
 htmllive: SPHINXERRORHANDLING = --re-ignore="/\.idea/|/venv/|/pep-0000.rst|/topic/" --open-browser --delay 0
-htmllive: html
+htmllive: ensure-sphinx-autobuild html
 
 ## dirhtml        to render PEPs to "index.html" files within "pep-NNNN" directories
 .PHONY: dirhtml
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 1c716bc5d..bf7a8470e 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -5,8 +5,6 @@ Pygments >= 2.9.0
 Sphinx >= 5.1.1, != 6.1.0, != 6.1.1
 docutils >= 0.19.0
 
-sphinx-autobuild
-
 # For tests
 pytest
 pytest-cov