diff --git a/setup.cfg b/setup.cfg
index fe484f92e..2e7be5e12 100644
--- a/setup.cfg
+++ b/setup.cfg
@@ -122,7 +122,8 @@ exclude =
 
 [tool:pytest]
 markers =
-    slow
+    slow: mark a test as slow
+    issue: reference specific issue
 
 [mypy]
 ignore_missing_imports = True
diff --git a/spacy/tests/conftest.py b/spacy/tests/conftest.py
index a5dedcc87..10982bac1 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/conftest.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/conftest.py
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ from spacy.util import get_lang_class
 
 def pytest_addoption(parser):
     parser.addoption("--slow", action="store_true", help="include slow tests")
+    parser.addoption("--issue", action="store", help="test specific issues")
 
 
 def pytest_runtest_setup(item):
@@ -16,10 +17,24 @@ def pytest_runtest_setup(item):
         # options weren't given.
         return item.config.getoption(f"--{opt}", False)
 
+    # Integration of boolean flags
     for opt in ["slow"]:
         if opt in item.keywords and not getopt(opt):
             pytest.skip(f"need --{opt} option to run")
 
+    # Special integration to mark tests with issue numbers
+    issues = getopt("issue")
+    if isinstance(issues, str):
+        if "issue" in item.keywords:
+            # Convert issues provided on the CLI to list of ints
+            issue_nos = [int(issue.strip()) for issue in issues.split(",")]
+            # Get all issues specified by decorators and check if they're provided
+            issue_refs = [mark.args[0] for mark in item.iter_markers(name="issue")]
+            if not any([ref in issue_nos for ref in issue_refs]):
+                pytest.skip(f"not referencing specified issues: {issue_nos}")
+        else:
+            pytest.skip("not referencing any issues")
+
 
 # Fixtures for language tokenizers (languages sorted alphabetically)
 
diff --git a/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue8168.py b/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue8168.py
index fbddf643c..e3f3b5cfa 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue8168.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue8168.py
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
+import pytest
 from spacy.lang.en import English
 
 
+@pytest.mark.issue(8168)
 def test_issue8168():
     nlp = English()
     ruler = nlp.add_pipe("entity_ruler")