diff --git a/.github/workflows/release.yml b/.github/workflows/release.yml
index 2f0f835..3000ffe 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/release.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/release.yml
@@ -3,8 +3,11 @@ name: Release
 
 on:
   workflow_dispatch:
-    branches:
-      - main
+    inputs:
+      tag:
+        description: 'Tag or ref to release from (e.g. v0.5.0). Leave empty to use main.'
+        required: false
+        default: ''
 
   push:
     branches:
@@ -22,7 +25,7 @@ jobs:
       - name: Checkout branch "main"
         uses: actions/checkout@v4
         with:
-          ref: 'main'
+          ref: ${{ github.event.inputs.tag || 'main' }}
           fetch-depth: 0
       - name: Install Global Dependencies
         run: pip install -U pip && pip install uv
@@ -59,5 +62,9 @@ jobs:
           prerelease: false
       - name: Publish to PyPI
         env:
-          UV_PYPI_TOKEN_PYPI: ${{ secrets.PII_CODEX_PYPI_TOKEN }}
-        run: uv publish
\ No newline at end of file
+          TWINE_USERNAME: __token__
+          TWINE_PASSWORD: ${{ secrets.PII_CODEX_PYPI_TOKEN }}
+        run: |
+          python -m pip install --upgrade pip
+          pip install twine
+          twine upload dist/*
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 666c97b..3c85e39 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -49,7 +49,6 @@ dev = [
     "spacy>=3.8.7",
     "presidio-analyzer>=2.2.360",
     "presidio-anonymizer>=2.2.360",
-    "en_core_web_lg @ https://github.com/explosion/spacy-models/releases/download/en_core_web_lg-3.8.0/en_core_web_lg-3.8.0.tar.gz",
     "tomli>=1.2.0,<3.0.0"
 ]