diff --git a/.github/workflows/basic_cli_build_release.yml b/.github/workflows/basic_cli_build_release.yml
index 5bf8987683..85075ec304 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/basic_cli_build_release.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/basic_cli_build_release.yml
@@ -12,8 +12,14 @@ jobs:
     steps:
       - uses: actions/checkout@v3
 
-      - name: fetch releases data and save to file
-        run: curl https://api.github.com/repos/roc-lang/roc/releases > roc_releases.json
+      # note: moving this step to a bash script will not work, the GITHUB_TOKEN is not passed properly
+      - name: Fetch releases data and save to file. Authorization is used to prevent rate limiting due to shared IP of github's macos ci servers.
+        run: |
+          curl --request GET \
+          --url https://api.github.com/repos/roc-lang/roc/releases \
+          --header 'authorization: Bearer ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}' \
+          --header 'content-type: application/json' \
+          --output roc_releases.json
 
       - run: cat roc_releases.json
 
@@ -80,8 +86,14 @@ jobs:
       - name: remove all folders except the ci folder
         run: shopt -s extglob && rm -r ./!(ci)/ 
 
-      - name: fetch releases data and save to file
-        run: curl https://api.github.com/repos/roc-lang/roc/releases > roc_releases.json
+      # note: moving this step to a bash script will not work, the GITHUB_TOKEN is not passed properly
+      - name: Fetch releases data and save to file. Authorization is used to prevent rate limiting due to shared IP of github's macos ci servers.
+        run: |
+          curl --request GET \
+          --url https://api.github.com/repos/roc-lang/roc/releases \
+          --header 'authorization: Bearer ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}' \
+          --header 'content-type: application/json' \
+          --output roc_releases.json
 
       - run: echo "ROC_RELEASE_URL=$(./ci/get_latest_release_url.sh linux_x86_64)" >> $GITHUB_ENV
 
diff --git a/ci/build_basic_cli.sh b/ci/build_basic_cli.sh
index 9099e94e26..e9b61489a1 100755
--- a/ci/build_basic_cli.sh
+++ b/ci/build_basic_cli.sh
@@ -17,9 +17,12 @@ ls | grep "roc_nightly.*tar\.gz" | xargs tar -xzvf
 # build the basic cli platform
 ./roc build ../basic-cli/examples/file.roc
 
+# We need this extra variable so we can safely check if $2 is empty later
+EXTRA_ARGS=${2:-}
+
 # In some rare cases it's nice to be able to use the legacy linker, so we produce the .o file to be able to do that
-if [[ -n $2 ]]; then
-  ./roc build $2 ../basic-cli/examples/file.roc
+if [ ! -z ${EXTRA_ARGS} ];
+ then ./roc build $EXTRA_ARGS ../basic-cli/examples/file.roc
 fi
 
 cd ..