diff --git a/src/common.zig b/src/common.zig
index ab13cba7683f3adf2758c019ca99a89339a2d838..beeb0e92eb557c2444fbc6b9e1b1b0111565bdf3 100644
--- a/src/common.zig
+++ b/src/common.zig
@@ -190,7 +190,6 @@ fn get_module_from_dep(list: *std.ArrayList(u.Module), d: u.Dep, dir: []const u8
                 error.FileNotFound => {
                     if (d.main.len > 0 or d.c_include_dirs.len > 0 or d.c_source_files.len > 0) {
                         var mod_from = try u.Module.from(d);
-                        if (mod_from.id.len == 0) mod_from.id = try u.random_string(48);
                         mod_from.clean_path = u.trim_prefix(moddir, dir)[1..];
                         if (mod_from.is_for_this()) try list.append(mod_from);
                     }
diff --git a/src/util/module.zig b/src/util/module.zig
index bb203f1af53dde317c846a89f56df0b2471c9ff3..2cbf34077bc77774c7970942cfa35d8c94310748 100644
--- a/src/util/module.zig
+++ b/src/util/module.zig
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ pub const Module = struct {
     pub fn from(dep: u.Dep) !Module {
         return Module{
             .is_sys_lib = false,
-            .id = dep.id,
+            .id = if (dep.id.len > 0) dep.id else try u.random_string(48),
             .name = dep.name,
             .main = dep.main,
             .c_include_dirs = dep.c_include_dirs,