diff --git a/.github/workflows/_release.yml b/.github/workflows/_release.yml
index 841292e..b50703c 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/_release.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/_release.yml
@@ -6,12 +6,17 @@ jobs:
     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
 
     steps:
-      # Version switcher file deployed straight from depo
+      # The version-switcher plugin is the one asset that comes from the repo (not
+      # a build artifact). Check it out into a dot-dir — the `files: "*"` glob below
+      # only sees the cwd root and skips leading-dot paths — then copy just that file
+      # to the root, so the upload is exactly {version-switcher.mjs, docs.zip}.
       - uses: actions/checkout@v5
         with:
+          path: .src
           sparse-checkout: plugins/version-switcher.mjs
+      - run: cp .src/plugins/version-switcher.mjs .
 
-      # All other release artifacts from other stages
+      # All other release artifacts from other stages (docs.zip).
       - name: Download artifacts
         uses: actions/download-artifact@v5
         with: