diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index b9db814fa1..3de611c145 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -56,8 +56,8 @@ endif
 
 ARGOCD_PROCFILE?=Procfile
 
-# pointing to python 3.7 to match https://github.com/argoproj/argo-cd/blob/master/.readthedocs.yml
-MKDOCS_DOCKER_IMAGE?=python:3.7-alpine
+# pointing to python 3.12 to match https://github.com/argoproj/argo-cd/blob/master/.readthedocs.yaml
+MKDOCS_DOCKER_IMAGE?=python:3.12-alpine
 MKDOCS_RUN_ARGS?=
 
 # Configuration for building argocd-test-tools image
@@ -580,7 +580,7 @@ build-docs-local:
 
 .PHONY: build-docs
 build-docs:
-	$(DOCKER) run ${MKDOCS_RUN_ARGS} --rm -it -v ${CURRENT_DIR}:/docs -w /docs --entrypoint "" ${MKDOCS_DOCKER_IMAGE} sh -c 'pip install mkdocs; pip install $$(mkdocs get-deps); mkdocs build'
+	$(DOCKER) run ${MKDOCS_RUN_ARGS} --rm -it -v ${CURRENT_DIR}:/docs -w /docs --entrypoint "" ${MKDOCS_DOCKER_IMAGE} sh -c 'pip install -r docs/requirements.txt; mkdocs build'
 
 .PHONY: serve-docs-local
 serve-docs-local:
@@ -588,7 +588,7 @@ serve-docs-local:
 
 .PHONY: serve-docs
 serve-docs:
-	$(DOCKER) run ${MKDOCS_RUN_ARGS} --rm -it -p 8000:8000 -v ${CURRENT_DIR}:/docs -w /docs --entrypoint "" ${MKDOCS_DOCKER_IMAGE} sh -c 'pip install mkdocs; pip install $$(mkdocs get-deps); mkdocs serve -a $$(ip route get 1 | awk '\''{print $$7}'\''):8000'
+	$(DOCKER) run ${MKDOCS_RUN_ARGS} --rm -it -p 8000:8000 -v ${CURRENT_DIR}:/docs -w /docs --entrypoint "" ${MKDOCS_DOCKER_IMAGE} sh -c 'pip install -r docs/requirements.txt; mkdocs serve -a $$(ip route get 1 | awk '\''{print $$7}'\''):8000'
 
 # Verify that kubectl can connect to your K8s cluster from Docker
 .PHONY: verify-kube-connect