diff --git a/make/announce.mk b/make/announce.mk
index fe3cfe58d829a0d7b0c49b6fca80ce65c94523a1..336063cc54ee7cb82ffbf5de3ff09f2604bfe3d0 100644
--- a/make/announce.mk
+++ b/make/announce.mk
@@ -10,6 +10,6 @@ $(ANNOUNCEMENT_FILE): $(ANNOUNCE) $(PYTHON_NEEDED) build/export_apkgs.py
 		--out $@ \
 		--title '$(PACK_TITLE)' \
 		--repo $(GITLAB_REPO) \
-		--releaseDir $(DOWNLOAD_PREFIX)$(RELEASE_DIR) \
+		--releaseDir $(RELEASE_DIR) \
 		$(addprefix --apkg , \
 			$(patsubst %,'%',$(APKGS)))
diff --git a/make/defs.mk b/make/defs.mk
index 939cd31a18f0def1903d467c1ec04b35399d6d7a..ea8b0de4c9451474a195372461612d69e9885e20 100644
--- a/make/defs.mk
+++ b/make/defs.mk
@@ -6,7 +6,8 @@ K := $(foreach exec,$(REQUIRED_ON_PATH), \
 # root like in CI, otherwise all generated files are in artifacts/
 # note that using . and ./ behave the same as the empty string and the filename
 # targets will not start with .
-BUILD_PREFIX ?= $(PWD)/artifacts
+BUILD_PREFIX ?= artifacts
+# make empty or add trailing slash
 BUILD_PREFIX := $(and $(filter-out . ./,$(BUILD_PREFIX)),$(BUILD_PREFIX)/)
 # some build subprocesses need this, e.g. the JS proxy for parcel needs to
 # know where to load the chardata from