diff --git a/.github/workflows/release.yml b/.github/workflows/release.yml
index 2945ca2..404081b 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/release.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/release.yml
@@ -43,12 +43,15 @@ jobs:
           echo '--- scripts/build.mjs (snippet) ---' >&2
           sed -n '1,200p' scripts/build.mjs >&2 || true
 
-          # Primary extraction: find the first quoted four-segment version
-          version=$(grep -E 'version[:=]' scripts/build.mjs | grep -oE '[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+' | head -1 || true)
+          # Primary extraction: find the first quoted semver (may include prerelease suffix)
+          raw=$(grep -m1 -oE '"[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+(-[0-9A-Za-z.-]+)?"' scripts/build.mjs | tr -d '"' | head -n1 || true)
 
-          # Validate final result is exactly major.minor.patch.build
-          if ! printf '%s' "$version" | grep -xE '^[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+$' >/dev/null; then
-            echo "Failed to extract a valid four-segment version from scripts/build.mjs" >&2
+          # Strip any prerelease suffix, keep only major.minor.patch
+          version=$(printf '%s' "$raw" | sed -E 's/^([0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+).*/\1/')
+
+          # Validate final result is exactly major.minor.patch
+          if ! printf '%s' "$version" | grep -xE '^[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+$' >/dev/null; then
+            echo "Failed to extract a valid base version from scripts/build.mjs" >&2
             sed -n '1,200p' scripts/build.mjs >&2 || true
             exit 1
           fi