diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index bc210cace..662f72ea9 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -20,7 +20,6 @@ dependencies = [
     "rich>=13.9.2,<14",
     "fastapi>=0.115.0",
     "starlette>=0.49.1",
-    "tornado>=6.5.5",
     "uvicorn>=0.31.1",
     "watchfiles>=0.24.0,<1.0",
     "python-on-whales>=0.73.0,<0.74",
@@ -33,24 +32,17 @@ dependencies = [
     "litellm>=1.83.7,<2",
     "kubernetes>=25.0.0,<36.0.0",
     "jinja2>=3.1.3,<4",
-    "mcp[cli]>=1.4.1",
+    "mcp>=1.4.1",
     "scale-gp>=0.1.0a59",
     "openai-agents==0.14.1",
     "pydantic-ai-slim>=1.0,<2",
-    "tzlocal>=5.3.1",
-    "tzdata>=2025.2",
-    "pytest>=8.4.0",
     "json_log_formatter>=1.1.1",
-    "pytest-asyncio>=1.0.0",
     "scale-gp-beta>=0.2.0",
-    "ipykernel>=6.29.5",
     "openai>=2.2,<3", # Required by openai-agents; litellm now supports openai 2.x (issue #13711 resolved: https://github.com/BerriAI/litellm/issues/13711)
     "cloudpickle>=3.1.1",
-    "datadog>=0.52.1",
     "ddtrace>=3.13.0",
     "yaspin>=3.1.0",
     "claude-agent-sdk>=0.1.0",
-    "anthropic>=0.40.0",
     "langgraph-checkpoint>=2.0.0",
     "opentelemetry-sdk>=1.20.0",
     "opentelemetry-api>=1.20.0",
@@ -152,6 +144,14 @@ include = [
 
 [tool.hatch.build.targets.wheel]
 packages = ["src/agentex"]
+# Don't ship internal test files in the wheel. `lib/cli/templates/**/test_agent.py.j2`
+# is intentionally kept — those render into user projects.
+exclude = [
+  "src/agentex/lib/**/tests/**",
+  "src/agentex/lib/**/test_*.py",
+  "src/agentex/lib/**/conftest.py",
+  "src/agentex/lib/**/pytest.ini",
+]
 
 [tool.hatch.build.targets.sdist]
 # Basically everything except hidden files/directories (such as .github, .devcontainers, .python-version, etc)