diff --git a/pkgs/applications/version-management/gitea/default.nix b/pkgs/applications/version-management/gitea/default.nix
index 527b3a1698b8..38aa63c1ab07 100644
--- a/pkgs/applications/version-management/gitea/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/applications/version-management/gitea/default.nix
@@ -35,12 +35,15 @@ buildGoPackage rec {
   nativeBuildInputs = [ makeWrapper ]
     ++ optional pamSupport pam;
 
-  buildFlags = optional sqliteSupport "-tags sqlite"
-    ++ optional pamSupport "-tags pam";
-  buildFlagsArray = ''
-    -ldflags=
-      -X=main.Version=${version}
-      ${optionalString sqliteSupport "-X=main.Tags=sqlite"}
+  preBuild = let
+    tags = optional pamSupport "pam"
+        ++ optional sqliteSupport "sqlite";
+    tagsString = concatStringsSep " " tags;
+  in ''
+    export buildFlagsArray=(
+      -tags="${tagsString}"
+      -ldflags='-X "main.Version=${version}" -X "main.Tags=${tagsString}"'
+    )
   '';
 
   outputs = [ "bin" "out" "data" ];