diff --git a/Dockerfile.api b/Dockerfile.api
index b6d91714..196b5a15 100644
--- a/Dockerfile.api
+++ b/Dockerfile.api
@@ -1,18 +1,16 @@
-FROM python:3.12-slim
-
-WORKDIR /app
-
-RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
-    build-essential \
-    curl \
-    git \
+FROM python:3.12-slim AS builder
+RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends build-essential git \
     && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
-
+WORKDIR /build
 COPY . .
+RUN pip wheel --no-cache-dir --wheel-dir /wheels .
 
-RUN pip install --no-cache-dir --upgrade pip && \
-    pip install --no-cache-dir -e .
-
+FROM python:3.12-slim AS runtime
+RUN useradd --create-home --uid 10001 agentwatch
+COPY --from=builder /wheels /wheels
+RUN pip install --no-cache-dir /wheels/*.whl && rm -rf /wheels
+USER agentwatch
 EXPOSE 8000
-
+HEALTHCHECK --interval=30s --timeout=10s --start-period=5s --retries=3 \
+    CMD python -c "import urllib.request; urllib.request.urlopen('http://localhost:8000/health')" || exit 1
 CMD ["uvicorn", "agentwatch.api.server:app", "--host", "0.0.0.0", "--port", "8000"]
\ No newline at end of file