diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 6c3363a..54d0512 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ dev.db
 venv/*
 backups/*
 static/
+cabot/.collectstatic/
 node_modules/*
 .python-eggs/*
 cabot.egg-info
diff --git a/MANIFEST.in b/MANIFEST.in
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7fb0102
--- /dev/null
+++ b/MANIFEST.in
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+recursive-include cabot/.collectstatic *
+recursive-include cabot/templates *
diff --git a/cabot/settings.py b/cabot/settings.py
index d9dc980..850b2f8 100644
--- a/cabot/settings.py
+++ b/cabot/settings.py
@@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ MEDIA_URL = '%s/media/' % URL_PREFIX
 # Don't put anything in this directory yourself; store your static files
 # in apps' "static/" subdirectories and in STATICFILES_DIRS.
 # Example: "/home/media/media.lawrence.com/static/"
-STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, os.path.pardir, 'static/')
+STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, '.collectstatic/')
 
 COMPRESS_ROOT = STATIC_ROOT
 
diff --git a/cabot/templates/base.html b/cabot/templates/base.html
index 758427d..ec85073 100644
--- a/cabot/templates/base.html
+++ b/cabot/templates/base.html
@@ -18,7 +18,6 @@
   <link rel="stylesheet" href="{% static 'arachnys/css/graph.css' %}" type="text/css">
   {% endcompress %}
   <link href="//netdna.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.0.3/css/font-awesome.css" rel="stylesheet">
-
   <link rel="icon" href="{% static 'arachnys/img/icon_48x48.png'%}" type="image/png">
   {% compress js %}
   <script type="text/coffeescript">
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index a822cf4..8f302a3 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -2,19 +2,18 @@
 import os
 from setuptools import setup, find_packages
 from os import environ as env
+import subprocess
 
-requirements_file = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), 'requirements.txt')
-with open(requirements_file) as f:
-    requirements = [line.rstrip('\n')
-                    for line in f
-                    if line and not line.startswith('#')]
+from pip.req import parse_requirements
 
-# pull in active plugins
-plugins = env['CABOT_PLUGINS_ENABLED'].split(',') if 'CABOT_PLUGINS_ENABLED' in env else ["cabot_alert_hipchat", "cabot_alert_twilio", "cabot_alert_email"]
+requirements = [str(req.req) for req in parse_requirements('requirements.txt', session=False)]
+requirements_plugins = [str(req.req) for req in parse_requirements('requirements-plugins.txt', session=False)]
+
+VERSION = subprocess.check_output(['git', 'describe', '--tags']).strip()
 
 setup(
     name='cabot',
-    version='0.8.3',
+    version=VERSION,
     description="Self-hosted, easily-deployable monitoring and alerts service"
                 " - like a lightweight PagerDuty",
     long_description=open('README.md').read(),
@@ -22,8 +21,8 @@ setup(
     author_email='info@arachnys.com',
     url='http://cabotapp.com',
     license='MIT',
-    install_requires=requirements + plugins,
+    install_requires=requirements + requirements_plugins,
     packages=find_packages(),
     include_package_data=True,
-    zip_safe=False,
+    zip_safe=False
 )