diff --git a/MANIFEST.in b/MANIFEST.in
index 5fe47cf7..bd295665 100644
--- a/MANIFEST.in
+++ b/MANIFEST.in
@@ -1 +1 @@
-include molecularnodes/assets/*
\ No newline at end of file
+recursive-include molecularnodes/assets *
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 47f81048..f114766d 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -18,3 +18,8 @@ bpy =  ["bpy>=4.2"]
 test = ["pytest", "pytest-cov", "syrupy", "scipy"]
 docs = ["quartodoc", "tomlkit"]
 
+[tool.setuptools]
+include-package-data = true
+
+[tool.setuptools.package-data]
+molecularnodes = ["assets/*", "assets/template/*"]