diff --git a/.gitlab-ci.yml b/.gitlab-ci.yml
index 255c62d7c6..076d48d9e4 100644
--- a/.gitlab-ci.yml
+++ b/.gitlab-ci.yml
@@ -4,10 +4,14 @@ variables:
   DOWNSTREAM_BRANCH:
     value: "main"
     description: "downstream jobs are triggered on this branch"
+  DD_TRACE_PY_BRANCH:
+    value: "fayssal/auto-update-libdatadog"
+    description: "the dd-trace-py branch the manual trigger_dd_trace_py job runs on"
 
 include:
   - local: .gitlab/benchmarks.yml
   - local: .gitlab/fuzz.yml
+  - local: .gitlab/dd-trace-py.yml
 
 trigger_internal_build:
   variables:
diff --git a/.gitlab/dd-trace-py.yml b/.gitlab/dd-trace-py.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..4c19e0fa3e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitlab/dd-trace-py.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+# Manual trigger for the dd-trace-py downstream pipeline.
+# This lets a maintainer test the current libdatadog commit against dd-trace-py
+# on demand from the GitLab pipeline UI.
+
+trigger_dd_trace_py:
+  variables:
+    LIBDATADOG_COMMIT_BRANCH: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH
+    LIBDATADOG_COMMIT_SHA: $CI_COMMIT_SHA
+    LIBDATADOG_SHORT_COMMIT_SHA: ${CI_COMMIT_SHORT_SHA}
+    LIBDATADOG_COMMIT_TAG: $CI_COMMIT_TAG
+    UPDATE_LIBDATADOG_VERSION: "true"
+  rules:
+    # Run automatically on every push to the default branch.
+    - if: '$CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == "main"'
+      when: on_success
+      allow_failure: true
+    # Otherwise allow a maintainer to trigger it manually from the pipeline UI.
+    - when: manual
+      allow_failure: true
+  trigger:
+    project: DataDog/apm-reliability/dd-trace-py
+    strategy: depend
+    branch: $DD_TRACE_PY_BRANCH