diff --git a/extensions/ql-vscode/CHANGELOG.md b/extensions/ql-vscode/CHANGELOG.md
index 56c1e2a9cc4..48554b65078 100644
--- a/extensions/ql-vscode/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/extensions/ql-vscode/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
 - Fix a bug where the query server was restarted twice after configuration changes. [#2884](https://github.com/github/vscode-codeql/pull/2884).
 - Add support for the `telemetry.telemetryLevel` setting. For more information, see the [telemetry documentation](https://codeql.github.com/docs/codeql-for-visual-studio-code/about-telemetry-in-codeql-for-visual-studio-code). [#2824](https://github.com/github/vscode-codeql/pull/2824).
 - Fix syntax highlighting directly after import statements with instantiation arguments. [#2792](https://github.com/github/vscode-codeql/pull/2792)
+- The `debug.saveBeforeStart` setting is now respected when running variant analyses. [#2950](https://github.com/github/vscode-codeql/pull/2950)
 
 ## 1.9.1 - 29 September 2023
 
diff --git a/extensions/ql-vscode/src/variant-analysis/variant-analysis-manager.ts b/extensions/ql-vscode/src/variant-analysis/variant-analysis-manager.ts
index 411186bb1a3..8ff46901f33 100644
--- a/extensions/ql-vscode/src/variant-analysis/variant-analysis-manager.ts
+++ b/extensions/ql-vscode/src/variant-analysis/variant-analysis-manager.ts
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ import {
   processVariantAnalysisRepositoryTask,
 } from "./variant-analysis-processor";
 import PQueue from "p-queue";
-import { createTimestampFile } from "../run-queries-shared";
+import { createTimestampFile, saveBeforeStart } from "../run-queries-shared";
 import { readFile, remove, pathExists } from "fs-extra";
 import { EOL } from "os";
 import { cancelVariantAnalysis } from "./gh-api/gh-actions-api-client";
@@ -199,6 +199,8 @@ export class VariantAnalysisManager
     progress: ProgressCallback,
     token: CancellationToken,
   ): Promise<void> {
+    await saveBeforeStart();
+
     progress({
       maxStep: 5,
       step: 0,