diff --git a/core/Cargo.toml b/core/Cargo.toml
index 62ca46bbf9229f..d0da2c1e4c8d16 100644
--- a/core/Cargo.toml
+++ b/core/Cargo.toml
@@ -80,7 +80,11 @@ matches = { workspace = true }
 raptorq = { workspace = true }
 serde_json = { workspace = true }
 serial_test = { workspace = true }
-solana-core = { workspace = true, features = ["dev-context-only-utils"] }
+# Even if we want to activate features only for dev-dep., `cargo publish`
+# complains about self-dep with version specified. So don't inherit with
+# `workspace = true`. In this way, `cargo publish` will strip this self-dep
+# according to https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/pull/7333
+solana-core = { path = ".", features = ["dev-context-only-utils"] }
 solana-logger = { workspace = true }
 solana-program-runtime = { workspace = true }
 solana-stake-program = { workspace = true }