diff --git a/.github/workflows/publish-ci-bins.yaml b/.github/workflows/publish-ci-bins.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..3810560e8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/workflows/publish-ci-bins.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+name: publish ci bins
+on:
+  push:
+    branches:
+      # make binaries which may be ahead of releases to use in CI jobs
+      - "ci-bins"
+jobs:
+  publish:
+    permissions:
+      write-all
+    name: publish
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    steps:
+      # NOTE: for debugging CI this allow shell access to github runner. Will print out tmate.io terminal url
+      # - name: Setup tmate session
+      #   uses: mxschmitt/action-tmate@v3
+      #   with:
+      #     detached: true
+      #   timeout-minutes: 15
+
+      - name: checkout
+        uses: actions/checkout@v3
+
+      - name: setup env
+        uses: ./.github/actions/build_env
+
+      - name: build libra cli release
+        # size and performance optimized binary with profile.cli
+        # NOTE: this is uses "testing" feature since some Move tests
+        # depend on it
+        run: cargo b --features testing --release -p libra
+
+      - name: libra publish
+        uses: svenstaro/upload-release-action@v2
+        with:
+          repo_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
+          file: target/release/libra
+          tag: ${{ github.ref }}
+          overwrite: true
+          file_glob: true
diff --git a/tools/cli/Cargo.toml b/tools/cli/Cargo.toml
index b8f2fba59..4057f1fc2 100644
--- a/tools/cli/Cargo.toml
+++ b/tools/cli/Cargo.toml
@@ -33,3 +33,6 @@ tokio = { workspace = true }
 [build-dependencies]
 anyhow = { workspace = true }
 vergen = { workspace = true }
+
+[features]
+testing = ["diem-vm/testing"]