diff --git a/hack/docker/gen/main.go b/hack/docker/gen/main.go
index 02cdec0815c..10302c71a90 100644
--- a/hack/docker/gen/main.go
+++ b/hack/docker/gen/main.go
@@ -1023,10 +1023,10 @@ jobs:
 			// remove the double quotation marks from the generated key "on": (note that the word "on" is a reserved word in sigs.k8s.io/yaml)
 			workflowYaml := strings.Replace(string(workflowYamlTmp), "\"on\":", "on:", 1)
 
-			totalLen := len(header) + len(workflowYaml)
-			if totalLen < len(header) || totalLen < len(workflowYaml) {
+			if len(header) > (int(^uint(0) >> 1) - len(workflowYaml)) {
 				return fmt.Errorf("size computation for allocation may overflow")
 			}
+			totalLen := len(header) + len(workflowYaml)
 
 			buf := bytes.NewBuffer(make([]byte, 0, totalLen))
 			err = license.Execute(buf, data)