diff --git a/.gitlab-ci.yml b/.gitlab-ci.yml
index c10700f6f..194125609 100644
--- a/.gitlab-ci.yml
+++ b/.gitlab-ci.yml
@@ -240,6 +240,7 @@ docker_release:
     - cp -r front/dist api/frontend
     - cd api
   script:
+    - if [ "$CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME" == "develop" ]; then ./scripts/set-api-build-metadata $CI_COMMIT_SHORT_SHA; fi);
     - docker build -t $IMAGE .
     - docker push $IMAGE
   only:
@@ -257,6 +258,7 @@ build_api:
     paths:
       - api
   script:
+    - if [ "$CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME" == "develop" ]; then ./scripts/set-api-build-metadata $CI_COMMIT_SHORT_SHA; fi);
     - chmod -R 750 api
     - echo Done!
   only:
diff --git a/api/funkwhale_api/__init__.py b/api/funkwhale_api/__init__.py
index 7ad37d53d..5c6c7cec7 100644
--- a/api/funkwhale_api/__init__.py
+++ b/api/funkwhale_api/__init__.py
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
-__version__ = "0.17"
+__version__ = "0.18-dev"
 __version_info__ = tuple(
     [
         int(num) if num.isdigit() else num
diff --git a/scripts/set-api-build-metadata.sh b/scripts/set-api-build-metadata.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..62c826caa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/set-api-build-metadata.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+#!/bin/bash -eu
+# given a commit hash, will append this to the version number stored
+# in api/funkwhale_api/__init__.py
+
+commit=$1
+suffix="+git.$commit"
+replace="__version__ = \"\1${suffix}\""
+file="api/funkwhale_api/__init__.py"
+sed -i -E 's@__version__ = \"(.*)\"@'"$replace"'@' $file