diff --git a/local/packages-to-build.R b/local/packages-to-build.R
index 3b508fb..aa30390 100644
--- a/local/packages-to-build.R
+++ b/local/packages-to-build.R
@@ -68,9 +68,36 @@ archive_versions <- archive_versions[
 ]
 
 # Now get release versions (assuming cran_release has Package and Version columns)
+#
+# Packages published in the last few days are held back. `check_for_binary()`
+# reads the published version from the `cran` GitHub mirror
+# (`GET /repos/cran/<pkg>/commits`), and that mirror lags CRAN: a package that
+# has just appeared has no repository there yet. The call then 404s, which is
+# permanent, but it is wrapped in `purrr::insistently` and retried ten times
+# with a backoff capped at 60s - so one unmirrored package burns about five
+# minutes and then aborts the whole shard.
+#
+# Holding them back costs nothing: the daily update pipeline builds new and
+# updated packages anyway, and they arrive here on the next run once the mirror
+# has caught up.
+mirror_lag_days <- as.numeric(
+  Sys.getenv("CRAN_MIRROR_LAG_DAYS", unset = "3")
+)
+published <- as.POSIXct(cran_release$Published, tz = "UTC")
+too_recent <- !is.na(published) &
+  published > (Sys.time() - mirror_lag_days * 86400)
+if (any(too_recent)) {
+  message(sprintf(
+    "Holding back %d package(s) published in the last %g day(s); the cran GitHub mirror will not have them yet: %s",
+    sum(too_recent),
+    mirror_lag_days,
+    paste(utils::head(cran_release$Package[too_recent], 10L), collapse = ", ")
+  ))
+}
+
 release_versions <- data.table(
-  Package = cran_release$Package,
-  Version = as.character(cran_release$Version)
+  Package = cran_release$Package[!too_recent],
+  Version = as.character(cran_release$Version[!too_recent])
 )
 
 pkgs_to_build <- unique(rbind(archive_versions, release_versions, fill = TRUE))