diff --git a/.eslintrc.js b/.eslintrc.js
index 01d0da16cf14..9da9cd411f5b 100644
--- a/.eslintrc.js
+++ b/.eslintrc.js
@@ -34,11 +34,9 @@ module.exports = {
       },
     },
     {
-      files: ['**/scripts/**/*.ts'],
+      files: ['scripts/**/*.ts'],
       parserOptions: {
-        // since filepaths are relative to the working directory, we need to go back up to reach the repo root level
-        // tsconfig
-        project: ['../../tsconfig.json'],
+        project: ['tsconfig.dev.json'],
       },
     },
     {
diff --git a/packages/gatsby/.eslintrc.js b/packages/gatsby/.eslintrc.js
index 56cb2e62ad47..88a6a96293ee 100644
--- a/packages/gatsby/.eslintrc.js
+++ b/packages/gatsby/.eslintrc.js
@@ -8,5 +8,13 @@ module.exports = {
   },
   // ignore these because they're not covered by a `tsconfig`, which makes eslint throw an error
   ignorePatterns: ['gatsby-browser.d.ts', 'gatsby-node.d.ts'],
+  overrides: [
+    {
+      files: ['scripts/**/*.ts'],
+      parserOptions: {
+        project: ['../../tsconfig.dev.json'],
+      },
+    },
+  ],
   extends: ['../../.eslintrc.js'],
 };
diff --git a/scripts/build-types-watch.ts b/scripts/build-types-watch.ts
index d8a4cedb32aa..8b29635479d0 100644
--- a/scripts/build-types-watch.ts
+++ b/scripts/build-types-watch.ts
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+/* eslint-disable no-console */
 /**
  * If `yarn build:types:watch` is run without types files previously having been created, the build will get stuck in an
  * errored state. This happens because lerna runs all of the packages' `yarn build:types:watch` statements in parallel,
@@ -28,7 +29,9 @@ for (const pkg of packages) {
     continue;
   }
 
-  const packageJSON = JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync(path.resolve(packagePath, 'package.json'), 'utf-8'));
+  const packageJSON = JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync(path.resolve(packagePath, 'package.json'), 'utf-8')) as {
+    scripts: Record<string, string>;
+  };
 
   if ('build:types' in packageJSON.scripts && !fs.existsSync(path.resolve(packagePath, 'build/types'))) {
     console.warn(
diff --git a/tsconfig.dev.json b/tsconfig.dev.json
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..49053ea1124c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tsconfig.dev.json
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+// TODO This should eventually end up as the tsconfig for a dev-utils package
+{
+  "extends": "./tsconfig.json",
+
+  "include": ["**/scripts/**/*.ts"],
+}
diff --git a/tsconfig.json b/tsconfig.json
index 98848bfdcbe8..f2ffa0c4e07c 100644
--- a/tsconfig.json
+++ b/tsconfig.json
@@ -1,10 +1,6 @@
 {
   "extends": "./packages/typescript/tsconfig.json",
 
-  // include scripts here because their TS config isn't package-specific, and they need to be included in a tsconfig
-  // file to be linted
-  "include": ["**/scripts/**/*.ts"],
-
   "compilerOptions": {
     // TODO: turn these on once we switch to only generating types once, using `tsconfig.types.json`
     // "declaration": false,