diff --git a/.github/workflows/release.yml b/.github/workflows/release.yml
index 8c755412..05c9373f 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/release.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/release.yml
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ jobs:
             # Use git describe tags to identify the number of commits the branch
             # is ahead of the most recent non-release-candidate tag, which is
             # part of the rc.<commits> value.
-            RELEASE_VERSION=$MAIN_RELEASE_VERSION-rc.$(node -e "console.log('$(git describe --tags --exclude *rc*)'.split('-')[1])")
+            RELEASE_VERSION=$MAIN_RELEASE_VERSION-rc.$(node -e "console.log('$(git describe --tags --exclude rc*)'.split('-')[1])")
 
             # release-please only ignores releases that have a form like [A-Z0-9]<version>, so prefixing with rc<version>
             RELEASE_NAME="rc$RELEASE_VERSION"