diff --git a/crates/nu-command/build.rs b/crates/nu-command/build.rs
index 67343c24b8..7ad06cc6f1 100644
--- a/crates/nu-command/build.rs
+++ b/crates/nu-command/build.rs
@@ -3,16 +3,18 @@ use std::process::Command;
 fn main() -> shadow_rs::SdResult<()> {
     // Look up the current Git commit ourselves instead of relying on shadow_rs,
     // because shadow_rs does it in a really slow-to-compile way (it builds libgit2)
-    let hash = get_git_hash().expect("failed to get latest git commit hash");
+    let hash = get_git_hash().unwrap_or_default();
     println!("cargo:rustc-env=NU_COMMIT_HASH={}", hash);
 
     shadow_rs::new()
 }
 
-fn get_git_hash() -> Result<String, std::io::Error> {
-    let out = Command::new("git").args(["rev-parse", "HEAD"]).output()?;
-    Ok(String::from_utf8(out.stdout)
-        .expect("could not convert stdout to string")
-        .trim()
-        .to_string())
+fn get_git_hash() -> Option<String> {
+    Command::new("git")
+        .args(["rev-parse", "HEAD"])
+        .output()
+        .ok()
+        .filter(|output| output.status.success())
+        .and_then(|output| String::from_utf8(output.stdout).ok())
+        .map(|hash| hash.trim().to_string())
 }