diff --git a/.gitea/workflows/ci.yml b/.gitea/workflows/ci.yml
index e2f3fd7..584b4ac 100644
--- a/.gitea/workflows/ci.yml
+++ b/.gitea/workflows/ci.yml
@@ -443,7 +443,8 @@ jobs:
           # Use venv's pip and python directly (avoids shell activation issues)
           # Install core dependencies including numpy and pillow (needed for module-level imports)
           # Skip heavy ML dependencies (tensorflow, deepface, opencv) for faster builds
-          /tmp/backend-venv/bin/pip install --no-cache-dir fastapi uvicorn pydantic sqlalchemy psycopg2-binary redis rq python-jose python-multipart python-dotenv bcrypt numpy pillow
+          # Include email-validator for pydantic[email] email validation
+          /tmp/backend-venv/bin/pip install --no-cache-dir fastapi uvicorn "pydantic[email]" sqlalchemy psycopg2-binary redis rq python-jose python-multipart python-dotenv bcrypt numpy pillow
           
           # Set environment variables for validation
           export PYTHONPATH=$(pwd)