diff --git a/.env b/.env
index e05d98869..b1ad7e2b3 100644
--- a/.env
+++ b/.env
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ PROJECT_NAME="airstack"
 # If you've run ./airstack.sh setup, then this will auto-generate from the git commit hash every time a change is made 
 # to a Dockerfile or docker-compose.yaml file. Otherwise this can also be set explicitly to make a release version.
 # auto-generated from git commit hash
-VERSION="0.20.0"
+VERSION="0.20.1"
 # Image-tag discriminator ONLY (appears in the image tag suffix, e.g. ..._robot-x86-64_dev).
 # No Dockerfile consumes it: "prebuilt" does NOT bake the built ros_ws into the image today —
 # a real prebuilt (workspace-baked) stage is future work. Keep "dev" (mounted code, built live).
diff --git a/.github/workflows/sync-develop-from-main.yaml b/.github/workflows/sync-develop-from-main.yaml
index 25d85d5b1..135a91863 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/sync-develop-from-main.yaml
+++ b/.github/workflows/sync-develop-from-main.yaml
@@ -42,9 +42,14 @@ jobs:
             git -c core.editor=true commit --no-edit
           fi
 
-          # If develop already contained everything main has, nothing to do.
-          if git diff --quiet origin/develop..HEAD; then
-            echo "develop already up to date with main; nothing to sync."
+          # Skip only when main is already in develop's ancestry. A tree
+          # diff is the wrong check here: right after a release, the merge
+          # result is content-identical to develop, but the merge commit
+          # must still be pushed (it advances the develop↔main merge base,
+          # preventing spurious conflicts on the next release PR) and the
+          # VERSION roll-forward below must still happen.
+          if git merge-base --is-ancestor origin/main origin/develop; then
+            echo "main is already an ancestor of develop; nothing to sync."
             echo "SKIP=true" >> $GITHUB_ENV
           fi