diff --git a/.github/workflows/ports_esp32.yml b/.github/workflows/ports_esp32.yml
index 95572eedfb..92ac6df3b6 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/ports_esp32.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/ports_esp32.yml
@@ -36,8 +36,8 @@ jobs:
     - uses: actions/checkout@v6
 
     - id: idf_ver
-      name: Read the ESP-IDF version (including Python version)
-      run: source tools/ci.sh && echo "IDF_VER=${IDF_VER}-py${PYTHON_VER}" | tee "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"
+      name: Read the ESP-IDF version (including Python version) and set outputs.IDF_VER
+      run: tools/ci.sh esp32_idf_ver | tee "${GITHUB_OUTPUT}"
 
     - name: Cached ESP-IDF install
       id: cache_esp_idf
diff --git a/tools/ci.sh b/tools/ci.sh
index ec4b57a8f5..8b12225660 100755
--- a/tools/ci.sh
+++ b/tools/ci.sh
@@ -206,6 +206,10 @@ PYTHON_VER=$(${PYTHON:-python} --version | cut -d' ' -f2)
 
 export IDF_CCACHE_ENABLE=1
 
+function ci_esp32_idf_ver {
+    echo "IDF_VER=${IDF_VER}-py${PYTHON_VER}"
+}
+
 function ci_esp32_idf_setup {
     echo "Using ESP-IDF version $IDF_VER"
     git clone --depth 1 --branch $IDF_VER https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf.git