diff --git a/stack.yaml b/stack.yaml
index df74319d2..20707fa41 100644
--- a/stack.yaml
+++ b/stack.yaml
@@ -1,5 +1,12 @@
+# stack is used for circleci and appveyor CI builds
 resolver: lts-14.3
 ghc-options:
-  postgrest: -O2 -Werror -Wall -fwarn-identities -fno-spec-constr -optP-Wno-nonportable-include-path
+  # -fno-spec-constr may help keep compile time memory use in check,
+  #   see https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/issues/16017#note_219304
+  # -optP-Wno-nonportable-include-path
+  #   prevents build failures on case-insensitive filesystems (macos),
+  #   see https://github.com/commercialhaskell/stack/issues/3918
+  postgrest: -O2 -Werror -Wall -fwarn-identities
+             -fno-spec-constr -optP-Wno-nonportable-include-path
 nix:
   packages: [pcre, pkgconfig, postgresql, zlib]