diff --git a/.github/workflows/pkgdown.yaml b/.github/workflows/pkgdown.yaml
index 5cad4a9a..f7bf0f93 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/pkgdown.yaml
+++ b/.github/workflows/pkgdown.yaml
@@ -40,12 +40,20 @@ jobs:
 
       - name: Build site
         run: |
-          if (startsWith("${{ github.event_name }}", "pull_request")) {
-              mode_ref <- ifelse("${{ github.base_ref }}" == "main", "release", "devel")
+          override <- if (startsWith("${{ github.event_name }}", "pull_request")) {
+              if ("${{ github.base_ref }}" == "main") {
+                list(development = list(mode = "release", version_label = "light"))
+              } else {
+                list(development = list(mode = "devel", version_label = "success"))
+              }
           } else {
-              mode_ref <- ifelse("${{ github.ref_name }}" == "main", "release", "devel")
+              if ("${{ github.ref_name }}" == "main") {
+                list(development = list(mode = "release", version_label = "light"))
+              } else {
+                list(development = list(mode = "devel", version_label = "success"))
+              }
           }
-          pkg <- pkgdown::as_pkgdown(".", override = list(destination = ifelse(mode_ref == "release", "docs", "docs/dev"), PKGDOWN_DEV_MODE = mode_ref))
+          pkg <- pkgdown::as_pkgdown(".", override = override)
           cli::cli_rule("Cleaning files from old site...")
           pkgdown::clean_site(pkg)
           pkgdown::build_site(pkg, preview = FALSE, install = FALSE, new_process = FALSE)
diff --git a/_pkgdown.yml b/_pkgdown.yml
index 1d71aea0..98124004 100644
--- a/_pkgdown.yml
+++ b/_pkgdown.yml
@@ -1,7 +1,14 @@
 # Colors should stay consistent across epipredict & epidatr, using Carnegie
 # Red https://www.cmu.edu/brand/brand-guidelines/visual-identity/colors.html
+
+# This is to give a default value to the `mode` parameter in the
+# `pkgdown::build_site` function. This is useful when building the site locally,
+# as it will default to `devel` mode. In practice, this should all be handled
+# dynamically by the CI/CD pipeline.
 development:
   mode: devel
+  version_label: success
+
 template:
   bootstrap: 5
   bootswatch: cosmo