diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index 57a30b1221..50db95b3de 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -150,6 +150,9 @@ $ ./configure && make -j8 test
 Make sure the linter is happy and that all tests pass. Please, do not submit
 patches that fail either check.
 
+Running `make test` will run the linter as well unless one or more tests fail.
+If you want to run the linter without running tests, use `make lint`.
+
 If you are updating tests and just want to run a single test to check it, you
 can use this syntax to run it exactly as the test harness would: