diff --git a/build.zig b/build.zig
index 5fd611b6c..472c3957a 100644
--- a/build.zig
+++ b/build.zig
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ const std = @import("std");
 const assert = std.debug.assert;
 const builtin = @import("builtin");
 const buildpkg = @import("src/build/main.zig");
+
 const appVersion = @import("build.zig.zon").version;
 const minimumZigVersion = @import("build.zig.zon").minimum_zig_version;
 
@@ -317,3 +318,8 @@ pub fn build(b: *std.Build) !void {
         try translations_step.addError("cannot update translations when i18n is disabled", .{});
     }
 }
+
+/// Marker used by Config.zig to detect if ghostty is the build root.
+/// This avoids running logic such as Git tag checking when Ghostty
+/// is used as a dependency.
+pub const _ghostty_build_root = true;
diff --git a/src/build/Config.zig b/src/build/Config.zig
index e88213d71..981cd7de5 100644
--- a/src/build/Config.zig
+++ b/src/build/Config.zig
@@ -218,6 +218,22 @@ pub fn init(b: *std.Build, appVersion: []const u8) !Config {
         try std.SemanticVersion.parse(v)
     else version: {
         const app_version = try std.SemanticVersion.parse(appVersion);
+
+        // Detect if ghostty is being built as a dependency by checking if the
+        // build root has our marker. When used as a dependency, we skip git
+        // detection entirely to avoid reading the downstream project's git state.
+        const is_dependency = !@hasDecl(
+            @import("root"),
+            "_ghostty_build_root",
+        );
+        if (is_dependency) {
+            break :version .{
+                .major = app_version.major,
+                .minor = app_version.minor,
+                .patch = app_version.patch,
+            };
+        }
+
         // If no explicit version is given, we try to detect it from git.
         const vsn = GitVersion.detect(b) catch |err| switch (err) {
             // If Git isn't available we just make an unknown dev version.