diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index 2d773a45..4c9139a4 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -4,6 +4,10 @@
 FROM node:alpine AS builder
 WORKDIR /app
 ENV NEXT_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1
+# Real release id supplied by CI (ci-deploy.sh) so next.config.ts skips git
+# entirely (there is no .git in the build context). Defaults to "unknown".
+ARG NEXT_DEPLOYMENT_ID="unknown"
+ENV NEXT_DEPLOYMENT_ID="$NEXT_DEPLOYMENT_ID"
 # pnpm install is always pinned to the version in package.json's
 # `packageManager` field (pnpm auto-selects it on install), so this global
 # install only needs to exist as a bootstrap and follows the active major.
diff --git a/scripts/ci-deploy.sh b/scripts/ci-deploy.sh
index f2800063..9830330e 100644
--- a/scripts/ci-deploy.sh
+++ b/scripts/ci-deploy.sh
@@ -74,7 +74,8 @@ pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
 pnpm exec playwright install chromium
 
 echo "Building $image"
-DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 docker build --network=host --progress=plain --cache-from epicnext-cms:latest -t "$image" .
+DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 docker build --network=host --progress=plain --cache-from epicnext-cms:latest \
+  --build-arg NEXT_DEPLOYMENT_ID="$sha" -t "$image" .
 check_current
 pnpm db:migrate
 check_current