diff --git a/.buildkite/pipeline-upload.sh b/.buildkite/pipeline-upload.sh
index dd3aa146c7..d3b4ec8fb0 100755
--- a/.buildkite/pipeline-upload.sh
+++ b/.buildkite/pipeline-upload.sh
@@ -10,7 +10,13 @@
 set -e
 cd "$(dirname "$0")"/..
 
-buildkite-agent pipeline upload ci/buildkite.yml
+if [[ -n $BUILDKITE_TAG ]]; then
+  buildkite-agent annotate --style info --context release-tag \
+    "https://github.com/solana-labs/solana/releases/$BUILDKITE_TAG"
+  buildkite-agent pipeline upload ci/buildkite-release.yml
+else
+  buildkite-agent pipeline upload ci/buildkite.yml
+fi
 
 if [[ $BUILDKITE_BRANCH =~ ^pull ]]; then
   # Add helpful link back to the corresponding Github Pull Request
diff --git a/ci/buildkite-release.yml b/ci/buildkite-release.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..27fc72076d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ci/buildkite-release.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+# Build steps that run on a release tag
+#
+# All the steps in `buildkite.yml` are skipped and we jump directly to the
+# secondary build steps since it's assumed the commit that was tagged is known
+# to be good so there's no need to rebuild and retest it.
+steps:
+  - trigger: "solana-secondary"
+    branches: "!pull/*"
+    async: true
+    build:
+      message: "${BUILDKITE_MESSAGE}"
+      commit: "${BUILDKITE_COMMIT}"
+      branch: "${BUILDKITE_BRANCH}"
+      env:
+        TRIGGERED_BUILDKITE_TAG: "${BUILDKITE_TAG}"
diff --git a/ci/buildkite-secondary.yml b/ci/buildkite-secondary.yml
index 5b520b3c8c..5a33952cae 100644
--- a/ci/buildkite-secondary.yml
+++ b/ci/buildkite-secondary.yml
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+#
+# Build steps that run after the primary pipeline on pushes and tags.
+# Pull requests to not run these steps.
 steps:
   - command: "sdk/docker-solana/build.sh"
     timeout_in_minutes: 60
diff --git a/ci/buildkite.yml b/ci/buildkite.yml
index 9a3a2aaa49..6a06a34d65 100644
--- a/ci/buildkite.yml
+++ b/ci/buildkite.yml
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+# Build steps that run on pushes and pull requests.
+#
+# Release tags use buildkite-release.yml instead
 steps:
   - command: "ci/shellcheck.sh"
     name: "shellcheck"