diff --git a/scripts/snap_build.sh b/scripts/snap_build.sh
index 0df80c146..f73636d6c 100755
--- a/scripts/snap_build.sh
+++ b/scripts/snap_build.sh
@@ -5,6 +5,9 @@ set -euxo pipefail
 # but as we're not using the 'make' plugin, we need to this manually now
 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive sudo apt install -y fsharp build-essential pkg-config cli-common-dev mono-devel libgtk2.0-cil-dev
 
+# just in case this is a retry-run, we want to clean artifacts from previous try
+rm -rf ./staging
+
 ./configure.sh --prefix=./staging
 make
 make install