diff --git a/.github/workflows/build.yml b/.github/workflows/build.yml
index b7e7a5763..9b3beb623 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/build.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/build.yml
@@ -4,6 +4,19 @@ on:
   push:
     tags:
       - "v*"
+      # `v0.0.0-*` is this repository's marker for a tag that is NOT a product
+      # version — a place to hang a binary that needs a permanent public URL, the
+      # way `v0.0.0-stt-models` hosts the 360 MB Whisper model. Without this
+      # exclusion, creating one runs the whole matrix — Windows, macOS x2, Linux,
+      # installers, notarisation — to publish an archive nobody asked it to build.
+      # That has already happened once.
+      #
+      # The other five release-triggered workflows do not need the same guard:
+      # AUR, Nix, winget and Homebrew all gate on
+      # `!github.event.release.prerelease`, and an internal release is marked as a
+      # prerelease. Only the Discord announcement still fires, which is noise
+      # rather than a wrong publication.
+      - "!v0.0.0-*"
   workflow_dispatch:
     inputs:
       arch: