diff --git a/tools/Makefile b/tools/Makefile
index c074e42fd92f..e497875fc7e3 100644
--- a/tools/Makefile
+++ b/tools/Makefile
@@ -78,6 +78,9 @@ bpf/%: FORCE
 libapi: FORCE
 	$(call descend,lib/api)
 
+nolibc: FORCE
+	$(call descend,include/nolibc)
+
 nolibc_%: FORCE
 	$(call descend,include/nolibc,$(patsubst nolibc_%,%,$@))
 
diff --git a/tools/include/nolibc/Makefile b/tools/include/nolibc/Makefile
index e8bac6ef3653..9768819abd55 100644
--- a/tools/include/nolibc/Makefile
+++ b/tools/include/nolibc/Makefile
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ all_files := ctype.h errno.h nolibc.h signal.h std.h stdio.h stdlib.h string.h \
              sys.h time.h types.h unistd.h
 
 # install all headers needed to support a bare-metal compiler
-all:
+all: headers
 
 # Note: when ARCH is "x86" we concatenate both x86_64 and i386
 headers: