diff --git a/newsfragments/4981.feature.rst b/newsfragments/4981.feature.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..d6163f7480
--- /dev/null
+++ b/newsfragments/4981.feature.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Added a build dependency on coherent.licensed to inject the declared license text at build time.
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 6a6d499d8b..24a036330e 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 [build-system]
-requires = []
+requires = [
+	# jaraco/skeleton#174
+	"coherent.licensed",
+]
 build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"
 backend-path = ["."]