diff --git a/tools/explorer/.gitignore b/tools/explorer/.gitignore
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..2831fe37d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/explorer/.gitignore
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+model-explorer
diff --git a/tools/explorer/CMakeLists.txt b/tools/explorer/CMakeLists.txt
index d58802c24..6fb9b2181 100644
--- a/tools/explorer/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/tools/explorer/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,15 +1,30 @@
+include(ExternalProject)
+
 set(TT_EXPLORER_SCRIPT ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/run.py)
 set(TTMLIR_BUILD_BIN_DIR ${TTMLIR_BINARY_DIR}/bin)
 
+set(MODEL_EXPLORER_VERSION "123046643fbe5524f40076fcffcaa642066c9c30")
+ExternalProject_Add(
+  model-explorer
+  PREFIX ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/model-explorer
+  GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/tenstorrent/model-explorer.git
+  GIT_TAG ${MODEL_EXPLORER_VERSION}
+  GIT_PROGRESS ON
+  CONFIGURE_COMMAND ""
+  BUILD_COMMAND ""
+  INSTALL_COMMAND ""
+)
+
 add_custom_target(explorer
   COMMENT "Building tt-explorer... ${TTMLIR_BIN_DIR}"
-  COMMAND cp -r ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/* ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}
-  COMMAND pip install ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/tt_adapter
-  DEPENDS TTMLIRPythonModules
+  COMMAND pip install ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/tt_adapter
+  COMMAND pip install ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/model-explorer/src/model-explorer/src/server/package
+
+  DEPENDS TTMLIRPythonModules model-explorer
 )
 
 add_custom_command(TARGET explorer POST_BUILD
   COMMENT "Installing tt-explorer command..."
-  COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E copy ${TT_EXPLORER_SCRIPT} ${TTMLIR_BUILD_BIN_DIR}/tt-explorer
+  COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E create_symlink ${TT_EXPLORER_SCRIPT} ${TTMLIR_BUILD_BIN_DIR}/tt-explorer
   COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E echo "Done. Run: tt-explorer to start the server."
 )
diff --git a/tools/explorer/tt_adapter/pyproject.toml b/tools/explorer/tt_adapter/pyproject.toml
index d69b549c6..8c71f967b 100644
--- a/tools/explorer/tt_adapter/pyproject.toml
+++ b/tools/explorer/tt_adapter/pyproject.toml
@@ -3,9 +3,6 @@ name = "tt-adapter"
 version = "0.0.1"
 description = "Model Explorer Adapter built for TT-MLIR Compiled outputs."
 readme = "README.md"
-dependencies = [
-    "ai-edge-model-explorer>=0.1"
-]
 
 [tool.poetry]
 packages = [{ include = "src/tt_adapter" }]