diff --git a/.dockerignore b/.dockerignore
index b0a5752..6d059af 100644
--- a/.dockerignore
+++ b/.dockerignore
@@ -1,8 +1,19 @@
 frontend/
+velxio/
+flowchart/
+compiler_worker/
+velxio-deployer-firmware/
+load-test/
+.browser-test/
+.pytest_cache/
+.git/
 __pycache__/
 *.pyc
 state/
 config/
 documentation.md
 podman-compose.yml
+podman-compose.velxio.yml
+lms-c-precompiled.tar
 .dockerignore
+
diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index f992f56..86e3bcd 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -15,11 +15,16 @@ WORKDIR /app
 COPY requirements.txt .
 RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt
 
-# Copy application code
-COPY . .
+# Copy backend application code only with non-root ownership
+COPY --chown=app:app app.py config.py extensions.py gunicorn.conf.py alembic.ini pytest.ini ./
+COPY --chown=app:app routes/ ./routes/
+COPY --chown=app:app services/ ./services/
+COPY --chown=app:app scripts/ ./scripts/
+COPY --chown=app:app migrations/ ./migrations/
+COPY --chown=app:app docs/ ./docs/
+COPY --chown=app:app help/ ./help/
+COPY --chown=app:app compiler/ ./compiler/
 
-# Change ownership to the app user
-RUN chown -R app:app /app
 USER app
 
 # Expose port 5000