diff --git a/ci/build.sh b/ci/build.sh
index 9489c4ab2f..ed9b1f4473 100644
--- a/ci/build.sh
+++ b/ci/build.sh
@@ -7,8 +7,15 @@ export VIR_TEST_DEBUG=1
 # $MESON_OPTS is an env that can optionally be set in the container,
 # populated at build time from the Dockerfile. A typical use case would
 # be to pass options to trigger cross-compilation
+#
+# $MESON_ARGS correspond to meson's setup args, i.e. configure args. It's
+# populated either from a GitLab's job configuration or from command line as
+# `$ helper build --meson-configure-args=-Dopt1 -Dopt2` when run in a local
+# containerized environment
 
-meson setup build --werror -Dsystem=true $MESON_OPTS $MESON_ARGS || \
+MESON_ARGS="$MESON_ARGS $MESON_OPTS"
+
+meson setup build --werror -Dsystem=true $MESON_ARGS || \
 (cat build/meson-logs/meson-log.txt && exit 1)
 
 ninja -C build $NINJA_ARGS