diff --git a/.scala-steward.conf b/.scala-steward.conf
index b85d241e7..45b615684 100644
--- a/.scala-steward.conf
+++ b/.scala-steward.conf
@@ -15,6 +15,8 @@ updates.ignore = [
 updates.pin = [
   # Scala 3.3 is a LTS
   { groupId = "org.scala-lang", artifactId = "scala3-library", version = "3.3." }
+  # we have too many build plugins that need sbt 1.x
+  { groupId = "org.scala-sbt", artifactId = "sbt", version = "1." }
 ]
 
 updatePullRequests = "always"