diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 8dde02b..2f2b87c 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -19,6 +19,8 @@ var/
 *.egg-info/
 .installed.cfg
 *.egg
+.eggs/
+src/bepasty/_version.py
 
 # Installer logs
 pip-log.txt
diff --git a/MANIFEST.in b/MANIFEST.in
index c042e72..5a3556a 100644
--- a/MANIFEST.in
+++ b/MANIFEST.in
@@ -1,8 +1,4 @@
-include README.rst CHANGES.rst LICENSE AUTHORS
-include setup.cfg setup.py
-recursive-include docs *
-recursive-include requirements.d *
-recursive-include src/bepasty/static *
-recursive-include src/bepasty/templates *
-prune docs/build
-
+# stuff we need to include into the sdist is handled automatically by
+# setuptools_scm - it includes all git-committed files.
+# but we want to exclude some committed files/dirs not needed in the sdist:
+exclude .gitattributes .gitignore .travis.yml
diff --git a/setup.cfg b/setup.cfg
index eb77f90..b3568bb 100644
--- a/setup.cfg
+++ b/setup.cfg
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [tool:pytest]
 pep8maxlinelength = 120
-norecursedirs = .git .tox build
+norecursedirs = .eggs .git .tox build
 pep8ignore =
  *.py E124  # closing bracket does not match visual indentation (behaves strange!?)
  *.py E125  # continuation line does not distinguish itself from next logical line (difficult to avoid!)
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 7fbab4c..31062c3 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -30,7 +30,10 @@ except ImportError:
 
 setup(
     name='bepasty',
-    version='0.5.0',
+    use_scm_version={
+        'write_to': 'src/bepasty/_version.py',
+    },
+    setup_requires=['setuptools_scm', ],
     license='BSD 2-clause',
     author='The Bepasty Team (see AUTHORS file)',
     author_email='',