diff --git a/.github/workflows/release-build.yml b/.github/workflows/release-build.yml
index 94fe2475..97a67cce 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/release-build.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/release-build.yml
@@ -60,7 +60,9 @@ jobs:
 
     - name: Run unit tests in release build
       if: "matrix.r"
-      run: just unit-tests
+      run: |
+        just avoid-benchmark-deps
+        just unit-tests
       env:
         GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
 
diff --git a/justfile b/justfile
index ae973e6d..c7dd34d4 100644
--- a/justfile
+++ b/justfile
@@ -220,7 +220,7 @@ fmt-check: fmt
 
 lint: clippy fmt-check
 
-# Some dev-dependencies require a newer version of Rust, but it doesn't matter for MSRV check
+# Rm dev-dependencies for `cargo-check` and clippy to speedup compilation.
 # This is a workaround for the cargo nightly option `-Z avoid-dev-deps`
 avoid-dev-deps:
     for crate in ./crates/*; do \
@@ -228,6 +228,12 @@ avoid-dev-deps:
         mv "$crate/Cargo.toml.tmp" "$crate/Cargo.toml" \
     ; done
 
+# leon dev-dependencies pulls in crates for benchmark but not used in test.
+# This is a workaround for the lack of `benchmark-dependencies`.
+avoid-benchmark-deps:
+    sed 's/\[dev-dependencies\]/[workaround-avoid-dev-deps]/g' ./crates/leon/Cargo.toml >./crates/leon/Cargo.toml.tmp
+    mv ./crates/leon/Cargo.toml.tmp ./crates/leon/Cargo.toml
+
 package-dir:
     rm -rf packages/prep
     mkdir -p packages/prep