diff --git a/backend/Dockerfile b/backend/Dockerfile
index 07611c6..68083c4 100644
--- a/backend/Dockerfile
+++ b/backend/Dockerfile
@@ -26,4 +26,8 @@ USER app
 
 EXPOSE 8000
 
+# Mark the container unhealthy if the API stops answering /health (no curl in slim image).
+HEALTHCHECK --interval=30s --timeout=5s --start-period=10s --retries=3 \
+    CMD ["python", "-c", "import urllib.request; urllib.request.urlopen('http://127.0.0.1:8000/health', timeout=4)"]
+
 CMD ["uvicorn", "main:app", "--host", "0.0.0.0", "--port", "8000"]