diff --git a/config/nightwatch.php b/config/nightwatch.php
index 60d10a8b..8ecff6f5 100644
--- a/config/nightwatch.php
+++ b/config/nightwatch.php
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 return [
     'enabled' => env('NIGHTWATCH_ENABLED', true),
     'token' => env('NIGHTWATCH_TOKEN'),
-    'deployment' => env('NIGHTWATCH_DEPLOY'),
+    'deployment' => env('NIGHTWATCH_DEPLOY', rescue(static fn () => trim((string) shell_exec('git describe --tags --always 2>/dev/null')), '', false)),
     'server' => env('NIGHTWATCH_SERVER', (string) gethostname()),
     'capture_exception_source_code' => env('NIGHTWATCH_CAPTURE_EXCEPTION_SOURCE_CODE', true),
     'redact_headers' => explode(',', env('NIGHTWATCH_REDACT_HEADERS', 'Authorization,Cookie,Proxy-Authorization,X-XSRF-TOKEN')),
diff --git a/tests/Unit/CoreTest.php b/tests/Unit/CoreTest.php
index 9da1d47d..88cc36c5 100644
--- a/tests/Unit/CoreTest.php
+++ b/tests/Unit/CoreTest.php
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
 use App\Models\User;
 use Carbon\CarbonImmutable;
 use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
+use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;
 use Laravel\Nightwatch\ExecutionStage;
 use Laravel\Nightwatch\Facades\Nightwatch;
 use Orchestra\Testbench\Attributes\WithEnv;
@@ -15,6 +16,7 @@
 
 use function dirname;
 use function hash;
+use function trim;
 
 class CoreTest extends TestCase
 {
@@ -89,4 +91,18 @@ public function test_it_ingests_fatal_errors_immediately(): void
             ],
         ]);
     }
+
+    #[WithEnv('NIGHTWATCH_FORCE_REQUEST', '1')]
+    public function test_it_uses_git_refs_for_deployments_by_default(): void
+    {
+        $ingest = $this->fakeIngest();
+        Route::get('/test', function () {
+            return 'OK';
+        });
+
+        $this->get('/test')->assertOk();
+
+        $ingest->assertWrittenTimes(1);
+        $ingest->assertLatestWrite('request:0.deploy', trim(`git describe --tags --always`));
+    }
 }