diff --git a/MANIFEST.in b/MANIFEST.in
index 9c46d79b..657484c6 100644
--- a/MANIFEST.in
+++ b/MANIFEST.in
@@ -1,29 +1,13 @@
-include README.md
-include COPYING.md
-include setupegg.py
-include bower-lite
-include package.json
+# using setuptools-scm means we only need to handle _non-tracked files here_
+
 include package-lock.json
-include *requirements.txt
-include Dockerfile
 
-graft onbuild
-graft jsx
-graft jupyterhub
-graft scripts
+# include untracked js/css artifacts, components
 graft share
-graft singleuser
-graft ci
 
-# Documentation
-graft docs
-prune docs/node_modules
-
-# Intermediate javascript files
-prune jsx/node_modules
-prune jsx/build
-
-# prune some large unused files from components
+# prune some large unused files from components.
+# these patterns affect source distributions (sdists)
+# we have stricter exclusions from installation in setup.py:get_data_files
 prune share/jupyterhub/static/components/bootstrap/dist/css
 exclude share/jupyterhub/static/components/bootstrap/dist/fonts/*.svg
 prune share/jupyterhub/static/components/font-awesome/css
@@ -33,11 +17,3 @@ prune share/jupyterhub/static/components/jquery/external
 prune share/jupyterhub/static/components/jquery/src
 prune share/jupyterhub/static/components/moment/lang
 prune share/jupyterhub/static/components/moment/min
-
-# Patterns to exclude from any directory
-global-exclude *~
-global-exclude *.pyc
-global-exclude *.pyo
-global-exclude .git
-global-exclude .ipynb_checkpoints
-global-exclude .bower.json