diff --git a/haiku_rag_slim/haiku/rag/ingester/api/routes/dashboard.py b/haiku_rag_slim/haiku/rag/ingester/api/routes/dashboard.py
index 892c2fc2..1cf87ddb 100644
--- a/haiku_rag_slim/haiku/rag/ingester/api/routes/dashboard.py
+++ b/haiku_rag_slim/haiku/rag/ingester/api/routes/dashboard.py
@@ -1,18 +1,17 @@
 from pathlib import Path
 
 from fastapi import APIRouter
-from fastapi.responses import HTMLResponse
+from fastapi.responses import FileResponse
 
 router = APIRouter(tags=["dashboard"])
 
-_STATIC_DIR = Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent / "static"
-_INDEX_HTML = (_STATIC_DIR / "index.html").read_text(encoding="utf-8")
+_INDEX_HTML_PATH = Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent / "static" / "index.html"
 
 
-@router.get("/", response_class=HTMLResponse, include_in_schema=False)
-async def dashboard() -> HTMLResponse:
+@router.get("/", include_in_schema=False)
+async def dashboard() -> FileResponse:
     """Serve the operator dashboard. Static page that polls /health, /sources,
     /stats and /jobs from the browser. Auth happens via the bearer header the
     JS attaches to its fetches — the dashboard route itself is unauthenticated
     so an operator can open it in a browser and paste the token on demand."""
-    return HTMLResponse(content=_INDEX_HTML)
+    return FileResponse(_INDEX_HTML_PATH, media_type="text/html")