diff --git a/.github/workflows/release.yml b/.github/workflows/release.yml
index 0d7adc5..b84d2de 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/release.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/release.yml
@@ -378,10 +378,19 @@ jobs:
         tag_name: ${{ github.ref_name }}
         name: ${{ github.ref_name }}
         draft: true
-        # Anything with a hyphen (rc, beta, alpha, etc.) is a pre-release;
-        # only bare semver like tray-v0.2.0 gets marked Latest on the
-        # GH releases page.
-        prerelease: ${{ contains(github.ref_name, '-') }}
+        # Anything with a hyphen in the SEMVER part (rc, beta, alpha,
+        # etc.) is a pre-release; only bare semver like tray-v0.2.0
+        # gets marked Latest on the GH releases page.
+        #
+        # Critical: check `bare_version` (the part after `tray-v`),
+        # NOT `github.ref_name`. The `tray-` prefix itself contains
+        # a hyphen, so `contains(github.ref_name, '-')` returned true
+        # for EVERY tray release including bare-semver live ones,
+        # silently mis-flagging every post-split tray release as
+        # pre-release. Latest-badge stuck on the pre-split v1.8.3
+        # tag until tray-v1.8.6 (2026-05-24) — see
+        # release-yml-prerelease-flag fix below.
+        prerelease: ${{ contains(needs.validate-tag.outputs.bare_version, '-') }}
         # `generate_release_notes: false` — our per-component changelog
         # in release-body.md replaces GH's auto-generated notes, which
         # would otherwise leak platform-only commits into the tray