diff --git a/.github/workflows/skill-drift.yml b/.github/workflows/skill-drift.yml
index 887ce515c..973816d5f 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/skill-drift.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/skill-drift.yml
@@ -23,7 +23,9 @@ on:
       - 'internal/hooks/**'
       - 'internal/mcp/**'
       - 'cmd/gortex/**'
+      - 'Makefile'
       - '.github/workflows/skill-drift.yml'
+      - '.github/workflows/publish-claude-plugin.yml'
   workflow_dispatch:
 
 jobs:
@@ -44,3 +46,9 @@ jobs:
 
       - name: All-platform render structural check
         run: ./gortex agents render --check
+
+      # publish-claude-plugin runs this target on every release, and nothing
+      # else exercises it, so a build change that breaks it would only show
+      # when a release tries to publish.
+      - name: Claude Code plugin bundle
+        run: make claude-plugin
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index c6fcd82eb..c726edb6e 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -158,9 +158,13 @@ build-windows:
 # no diff against what's checked in — drift means the bundle is stale
 # vs the source-of-truth content in
 # internal/agents/commands_bodies.go.
-claude-plugin: build
+#
+# The emitter needs none of the optional backends, so it is built without
+# `build`'s llama tag: the publish runner has no llama.cpp to link against.
+# `go run` also leaves a locally built ./gortex untouched.
+claude-plugin:
 	rm -rf ./claude-plugin
-	./$(BINARY) plugin emit --target ./claude-plugin --variant anthropic
+	go run -ldflags '$(LDFLAGS)' ./cmd/gortex/ plugin emit --target ./claude-plugin --variant anthropic
 	@echo "✓ Regenerated claude-plugin/ from internal/agents commands"
 
 claude-plugin-check: claude-plugin