diff --git a/pkgs/development/interpreters/nelua/default.nix b/pkgs/development/interpreters/nelua/default.nix
index fd57cc4b46ee..07494f121b02 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/interpreters/nelua/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/interpreters/nelua/default.nix
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   pname = "nelua";
-  version = "unstable-2024-04-20";
+  version = "0-unstable-2024-04-20";
 
   src = fetchFromGitHub {
     owner = "edubart";
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   postPatch = ''
     substituteInPlace lualib/nelua/version.lua \
       --replace "NELUA_GIT_HASH = nil" "NELUA_GIT_HASH = '${src.rev}'" \
-      --replace "NELUA_GIT_DATE = nil" "NELUA_GIT_DATE = '${lib.removePrefix "unstable-" version}'"
+      --replace "NELUA_GIT_DATE = nil" "NELUA_GIT_DATE = '${lib.removePrefix "0-unstable-" version}'"
   '';
 
   makeFlags = [ "PREFIX=$(out)" ];
@@ -23,7 +23,10 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
 
   doCheck = true;
 
-  passthru.updateScript = unstableGitUpdater { };
+  passthru.updateScript = unstableGitUpdater {
+    # no releases, only stale "latest" tag
+    hardcodeZeroVersion = true;
+  };
 
   meta = with lib; {
     description = "Minimal, efficient, statically-typed and meta-programmable systems programming language heavily inspired by Lua, which compiles to C and native code";