diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index 9ffa368..2642c31 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -32,6 +32,9 @@ set(CMAKE_THREAD_PREFER_PTHREAD TRUE)
 find_package(Threads REQUIRED)
 find_package(Iconv QUIET)
 
+# create a compilation database for e.g. clang-tidy
+set(CMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS ON)
+
 if (WIN32)
   # this will suffice for now; don't really care about 32-bit
   set(LIBXML2_INCLUDE_DIRS ${FBXSDK_INCLUDE_DIR})