diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 37e50861..13f62a2e 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -5,6 +5,9 @@
 #: The agent CLIs whose base variants `make build` builds (ADR 0014 §4). The claude variant must
 #: match DEFAULT_IMAGE. Override to build a subset, e.g. `make build AGENT_CLIS=codex`.
 AGENT_CLIS ?= claude codex
+#: The freshness stamp shared with ImageBuilder.build_base_if_missing.  Keep this overridable so
+#: callers can select an explicit package identity (and tests can dry-run without invoking Python).
+PANOPTICON_VERSION ?= $(shell uv run python -c 'import panopticon; print(panopticon.__version__)')
 
 help:  ## List available targets
 	@grep -h -E '^[a-z][a-z-]*:.*## ' $(MAKEFILE_LIST) | sort | awk -F':.*## ' '{printf "  \033[36m%-12s\033[0m %s\n", $$1, $$2}'
@@ -58,6 +61,7 @@ build:  ## Build the per-CLI base task-container images (override CLIs with AGEN
 	for cli in $(AGENT_CLIS); do \
 	  docker build \
 	    --tag panopticon-base-$$cli \
+	    --label org.panopticon.version=$(PANOPTICON_VERSION) \
 	    --build-arg PANOPTICON_WHEEL=$$wheel \
 	    --build-arg AGENT_CLI=$$cli \
 	    --file src/panopticon/docker/Dockerfile \
diff --git a/tests/test_makefile.py b/tests/test_makefile.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..4b0798bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/test_makefile.py
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+"""Regression tests for developer commands emitted by the Makefile."""
+
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+import subprocess
+
+
+def test_build_stamps_base_image_with_panopticon_version() -> None:
+    result = subprocess.run(
+        [
+            "make",
+            "--dry-run",
+            "build",
+            "AGENT_CLIS=claude",
+            "PANOPTICON_VERSION=9.8.7",
+        ],
+        check=True,
+        capture_output=True,
+        text=True,
+    )
+
+    assert "docker build" in result.stdout
+    assert "--tag panopticon-base-$cli" in result.stdout
+    assert "--label org.panopticon.version=9.8.7" in result.stdout