diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index 17e122d..b1b7388 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
     "type-check:viewer": "npm run type-check --prefix viewer-frontend",
     "lint:python": "flake8 backend --max-line-length=100 --ignore=E501,W503 || true",
     "lint:python:syntax": "find backend -name '*.py' -exec python -m py_compile {} \\;",
-    "test:backend": "export PYTHONPATH=$(pwd) && source venv/bin/activate && python3 -m pytest tests/ -v || python3 -m pytest tests/ -v",
+    "test:backend": "export PYTHONPATH=$(pwd) && export SKIP_DEEPFACE_IN_TESTS=1 && ./venv/bin/python3 -m pytest tests/ -v",
     "test:all": "npm run test:backend",
     "ci:local": "npm run lint:all && npm run type-check:viewer && npm run lint:python && npm run test:backend && npm run build:all",
     "deploy:dev": "npm run build:all && echo '✅ Build complete. Ready for deployment to dev server (10.0.10.121)'",
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index cdd6762..0687ae5 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 fastapi==0.115.0
 uvicorn[standard]==0.30.6
-pydantic==2.9.1
+pydantic[email]==2.9.1
 SQLAlchemy==2.0.36
 psycopg2-binary==2.9.9
 redis==5.0.8
diff --git a/run_tests.sh b/run_tests.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..31c1b96
--- /dev/null
+++ b/run_tests.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+# Simple test runner script for PunimTag backend tests
+
+set -e
+
+# Colors for output
+GREEN='\033[0;32m'
+RED='\033[0;31m'
+YELLOW='\033[1;33m'
+NC='\033[0m' # No Color
+
+echo -e "${YELLOW}🧪 Running PunimTag Backend Tests${NC}"
+echo ""
+
+# Set environment variables
+export PYTHONPATH=$(pwd)
+export SKIP_DEEPFACE_IN_TESTS=1
+
+# Check if venv exists
+if [ ! -d "venv" ]; then
+    echo -e "${RED}❌ Virtual environment not found. Please create it first:${NC}"
+    echo "   python3 -m venv venv"
+    echo "   source venv/bin/activate"
+    echo "   pip install -r requirements.txt"
+    exit 1
+fi
+
+# Check if pytest is installed
+if ! ./venv/bin/python3 -m pytest --version > /dev/null 2>&1; then
+    echo -e "${YELLOW}⚠️  pytest not found. Installing dependencies...${NC}"
+    ./venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt
+fi
+
+echo -e "${GREEN}✅ Environment ready${NC}"
+echo ""
+echo "Running tests..."
+echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
+echo ""
+
+# Run tests with clear output
+./venv/bin/python3 -m pytest tests/ -v --tb=short
+
+echo ""
+echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
+echo -e "${GREEN}✅ Tests completed${NC}"
+