diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 51e490f9bc1..4f56d5e8b84 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -2,6 +2,15 @@
 MAKEFLAGS += --no-builtin-rules
 .SUFFIXES:
 
+# set a VERBOSE=1 env var for verbose output. VERBOSE=0 (or unset) disables.
+# this is used to make verbose flags, suitable for `$(if $(test_v),...)`.
+VERBOSE ?= 0
+ifneq (0,$(VERBOSE))
+test_v = 1
+else
+test_v =
+endif
+
 # a literal space value, for makefile purposes
 SPACE :=
 SPACE +=
@@ -16,7 +25,7 @@ GOOS ?= $(shell go env GOOS)
 GOARCH ?= $(shell go env GOARCH)
 
 TEST_TIMEOUT = 20m
-TEST_ARG ?= -race -v -timeout $(TEST_TIMEOUT)
+TEST_ARG ?= -race $(if $(test_v),-v) -timeout $(TEST_TIMEOUT)
 BUILD := .build
 BIN := $(BUILD)/bin
 TOOLS_CMD_ROOT=./cmd/tools
diff --git a/docker/buildkite/Dockerfile b/docker/buildkite/Dockerfile
index 8e6c3335117..4cbbb15cb28 100644
--- a/docker/buildkite/Dockerfile
+++ b/docker/buildkite/Dockerfile
@@ -22,6 +22,9 @@ RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
 RUN pip install -U 'pip<21'
 RUN pip install PyYAML==3.13 cqlsh==5.0.4
 
+# verbose test output from `make`, can be disabled with VERBOSE=0
+ENV VERBOSE=1
+
 # https://github.com/docker-library/golang/blob/c1baf037d71331eb0b8d4c70cff4c29cf124c5e0/1.4/Dockerfile
 RUN mkdir -p /cadence
 WORKDIR /cadence