diff --git a/.github/workflows/ci.yaml b/.github/workflows/ci.yaml
index 9207a54f..7c31a1a0 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/ci.yaml
+++ b/.github/workflows/ci.yaml
@@ -49,10 +49,29 @@ jobs:
           token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
           release-type: simple
           bump-minor-pre-major: true
-      # Checkout and test
+      # Checkout
       - uses: actions/checkout@v2
-      - uses: actions/setup-go@v2
+      # Tag
+      # If a release was created, tag `vX.Y.Z` synchronously which:
+      #   1. Triggers release-please to create draft release, allowing manual
+      #      proofreading (and probably editing) of release notes.
+      #      (often raw commit messages are a bit overwhelming, overly granular
+      #      or at least could use some context when included as release notes).
+      #   2. Ensures the tag exists for subsequent action tasks which rely on
+      #      this metadata, such as including version in release binaries.
+      #      The release-please action does add this tag, but asynchronously.
+      # Note that tag is created annotated such that it shows tagging metadata
+      # when queried rather than just the associated commit metadata.
+      - name: tag
+        if: ${{ steps.release.outputs.release_created }}
+        run: |
+          git config user.name github-actions[bot]
+          git tag -d v${{steps.release.outputs.major}}.${{steps.release.outputs.minor}}.${{steps.release.outputs.patch}} || true
+          git push origin :v${{steps.release.outputs.major}}.${{steps.release.outputs.minor}}.${{steps.release.outputs.patch}} || true
+          git tag -a v${{steps.release.outputs.major}}.${{steps.release.outputs.minor}}.${{steps.release.outputs.patch}} -m "Release v${{steps.release.outputs.major}}.${{steps.release.outputs.minor}}.${{steps.release.outputs.patch}}"
+          git push origin v${{steps.release.outputs.major}}.${{steps.release.outputs.minor}}.${{steps.release.outputs.patch}} || true
 
+      - uses: actions/setup-go@v2
       - name: Install pkger
         run: |
           curl -s -L -o pkger.tgz ${{ needs.test.outputs.pkger }}
@@ -63,7 +82,14 @@ jobs:
         run:  make cross-platform
         env:
           PKGER: "./pkger"
-          VERS: ${{ steps.release.outputs.tag_name }}
+          # NOTE:
+          # release-please adds the version asynchronously. Without using the
+          # synchonous tagging step above, the version can be explicitly passed
+          # to the build using the following environment variable.  However this
+          # has the side-effect of causing inter-relese binaries to not include
+          # verbose version information, because the special version `tip` is
+          # overriden with a blank string in those cases.
+          # VERS: ${{ steps.release.outputs.tag_name }}
 
       # Upload all build artifacts whether it's a release or not
       - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v2
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index b57fb626..c0556512 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -12,8 +12,8 @@ DATE := $(shell date -u +"%Y%m%dT%H%M%SZ")
 HASH := $(shell git rev-parse --short HEAD 2>/dev/null)
 VTAG := $(shell git tag --points-at HEAD)
 # a VERS environment variable takes precedence over git tags
-# due to issues with release-please-action tagging not working
-# as expected in CI
+# and is necessary with release-please-action which tags asynchronously
+# unless explicitly, synchronously tagging as is done in ci.yaml
 VERS ?= $(shell [ -z $(VTAG) ] && echo 'tip' || echo $(VTAG) )
 
 TEMPLATE_DIRS=$(shell find templates -type d)