diff --git a/Documentation/conf.py b/Documentation/conf.py
index 970edf3d7298..3ac61a208145 100644
--- a/Documentation/conf.py
+++ b/Documentation/conf.py
@@ -23,11 +23,8 @@ project = 'libcamera'
 copyright = '2018-2019, The libcamera documentation authors'
 author = u'Kieran Bingham, Jacopo Mondi, Laurent Pinchart, Niklas Söderlund'
 
-# The short X.Y version
-version = ''
-# The full version, including alpha/beta/rc tags
-release = '0.1'
-
+# Version information is provided by the build environment, through the
+# configuration_data (cdata) in Documentation/meson.build
 
 # -- General configuration ---------------------------------------------------
 
diff --git a/Documentation/meson.build b/Documentation/meson.build
index 629e853120cb..ea7db4eaeab0 100644
--- a/Documentation/meson.build
+++ b/Documentation/meson.build
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-doc_install_dir = join_paths(get_option('datadir'), 'doc', 'libcamera-@0@'.format(api_version))
+doc_install_dir = join_paths(get_option('datadir'), 'doc', 'libcamera-@0@'.format(meson.project_version()))
 
 #
 # Doxygen
@@ -47,8 +47,10 @@ if sphinx.found()
         'index.rst',
     ]
 
+    release = 'release=' + meson.project_version()
+
     custom_target('documentation',
-                  command : [sphinx, '-q', '-W', '-b', 'html', meson.current_source_dir(), '@OUTPUT@'],
+                  command : [sphinx, '-D', release, '-q', '-W', '-b', 'html', meson.current_source_dir(), '@OUTPUT@'],
                   input : docs_sources,
                   output : 'html',
                   build_by_default : true,
diff --git a/include/libcamera/meson.build b/include/libcamera/meson.build
index 3067120a1598..69823dd1da63 100644
--- a/include/libcamera/meson.build
+++ b/include/libcamera/meson.build
@@ -18,6 +18,11 @@ libcamera_api = files([
 
 gen_header = files('gen-header.sh')
 
+version_h = vcs_tag(command: ['../../utils/gen-version.sh', meson.current_source_dir()],
+                    input: 'version.h.in',
+                    output: 'version.h',
+                    fallback: 'v0.0')
+
 libcamera_h = custom_target('gen-header',
                             input : 'meson.build',
                             output : 'libcamera.h',
diff --git a/include/libcamera/version.h.in b/include/libcamera/version.h.in
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..e49b36962aed
--- /dev/null
+++ b/include/libcamera/version.h.in
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+/* SPDX-License-Identifier: LGPL-2.1-or-later */
+/*
+ * Copyright (C) 2019, Google Inc.
+ *
+ * version.h - Library version information
+ *
+ * This file is auto-generated. Do not edit.
+ */
+#ifndef __LIBCAMERA_VERSION_H__
+#define __LIBCAMERA_VERSION_H__
+
+#include <string>
+
+#define LIBCAMERA_VERSION "@VCS_TAG@"
+
+namespace libcamera {
+
+extern const std::string version;
+
+} /* namespace libcamera */
+
+#endif /* __LIBCAMERA_VERSION_H__ */
diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index a3b0bc820072..342b3cc76a93 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 project('libcamera', 'c', 'cpp',
     meson_version : '>= 0.40',
-    version : '0.1',
+    version : run_command('utils/gen-version.sh',
+                          '@0@'.format(meson.source_root()),
+                          check : true).stdout().strip(),
     default_options : [
         'werror=true',
         'warning_level=2',
@@ -8,11 +10,6 @@ project('libcamera', 'c', 'cpp',
     ],
     license : 'LGPL 2.1+')
 
-# TODO: Extract this from project.version.
-#       Ideally the version at Documentation/conf.py should be
-#       generated from this too.
-api_version = '0.1'
-
 cc = meson.get_compiler('c')
 config_h = configuration_data()
 
diff --git a/src/libcamera/camera_manager.cpp b/src/libcamera/camera_manager.cpp
index cf881ce2e641..5ced4ad76ba0 100644
--- a/src/libcamera/camera_manager.cpp
+++ b/src/libcamera/camera_manager.cpp
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@
 
 #include <libcamera/camera.h>
 #include <libcamera/event_dispatcher.h>
+#include <libcamera/version.h>
 
 #include "device_enumerator.h"
 #include "event_dispatcher_poll.h"
@@ -64,6 +65,11 @@ CameraManager::~CameraManager()
 {
 }
 
+/**
+ * \brief Declare the library global version string.
+ */
+const std::string version(LIBCAMERA_VERSION);
+
 /**
  * \brief Start the camera manager
  *
@@ -79,6 +85,8 @@ int CameraManager::start()
 	if (enumerator_)
 		return -EBUSY;
 
+	LOG(Camera, Info) << "libcamera " << version;
+
 	enumerator_ = DeviceEnumerator::create();
 	if (!enumerator_ || enumerator_->enumerate())
 		return -ENODEV;
diff --git a/src/libcamera/meson.build b/src/libcamera/meson.build
index 8075b1f696f5..336f4f066fac 100644
--- a/src/libcamera/meson.build
+++ b/src/libcamera/meson.build
@@ -80,6 +80,7 @@ control_types_cpp = custom_target('control_types_cpp',
 libcamera_sources += control_types_cpp
 
 libcamera_deps = [
+    declare_dependency(sources : version_h),
     cc.find_library('dl'),
     libudev,
 ]
diff --git a/utils/gen-version.sh b/utils/gen-version.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000000..b3003d7a80d3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/utils/gen-version.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later
+# Generate a version string using git describe
+
+if [ -n "$1" ]
+then
+	cd "$1" 2>/dev/null || exit 1
+fi
+
+# Get a short description from the tree.
+version=$(git describe --abbrev=8 --match "v[0-9]*" 2>/dev/null)
+
+if [ -z "$version" ]
+then
+	# Handle an un-tagged repository
+	sha=$(git describe --abbrev=8 --always 2>/dev/null)
+	commits=$(git log --oneline | wc -l 2>/dev/null)
+	version=v0.0.$commits.$sha
+fi
+
+# Prevent changed timestamps causing -dirty labels
+git update-index --refresh > /dev/null 2>&1
+dirty=$(git diff-index --name-only HEAD 2>/dev/null) || dirty=
+
+# Strip the 'g', and replace the preceeding '-' with a '+' to denote a label
+version=$(echo "$version" | sed -e 's/-g/+/g')
+
+# Fix the '-' (the patch count) to a '.' as a version increment.
+version=$(echo "$version" | sed -e 's/-/./g')
+
+if [ -n "$dirty" ]
+then
+	version=$version-dirty
+fi
+
+echo "$version"