diff --git a/python/pyxet/pyxet/file_operations.py b/python/pyxet/pyxet/file_operations.py
index 403c4d6..b1d93a8 100644
--- a/python/pyxet/pyxet/file_operations.py
+++ b/python/pyxet/pyxet/file_operations.py
@@ -5,7 +5,9 @@
 from concurrent.futures import ThreadPoolExecutor
 from fnmatch import fnmatch
 from collections import namedtuple
-from .rpyxet import rpyxet
+
+if 'SPHINX_BUILD' not in os.environ:
+    from .rpyxet import rpyxet
 
 import fsspec