diff --git a/manifest/main.ml b/manifest/main.ml
index 2a15f8f3e0b7f957d3420e1451cf926263bf06e4..a62af92f3a6c522daa4e3830766e1bab051eb120 100644
--- a/manifest/main.ml
+++ b/manifest/main.ml
@@ -5668,6 +5668,10 @@ let exclude filename =
   | "vendors" :: _ -> true
   | "scripts" :: _ -> true
   | "docs" :: _ -> true
+  (* opam/mandatory-for-make.opam is a trick to have [make build-deps]
+     install some optional dependencies in a mandatory way.
+     Once we use lock files, we can remove this, probably. *)
+  | ["opam"; "mandatory-for-make.opam"] -> true
   (* opam-repository is used by scripts/opam-release.sh *)
   | "opam-repository" :: _ -> true
   (* Tezt is only partially managed by the manifest.
diff --git a/opam/mandatory-for-make.opam b/opam/mandatory-for-make.opam
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..d9c57936eb5264353d8df1320b5a7b28e76c4368
--- /dev/null
+++ b/opam/mandatory-for-make.opam
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+opam-version: "2.0"
+maintainer: "contact@tezos.com"
+authors: ["Tezos devteam"]
+homepage: "https://www.tezos.com/"
+bug-reports: "https://gitlab.com/tezos/tezos/issues"
+dev-repo: "git+https://gitlab.com/tezos/tezos.git"
+license: "MIT"
+depends: [
+  "ledgerwallet-tezos"
+]
+synopsis: "Forces install of ledgerwallet-tezos by make build-deps"