diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index c2ab5d202..15e362bb3 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ maintainers = [
 ]
 description = "Apache Burr (incubating) makes it easy to develop applications that make decisions (chatbots, agents, simulations, etc...) from simple python building blocks."
 readme = "README.md"
-license-files = ["LICENSE-wheel", "NOTICE", "DISCLAIMER"]
+license-files = ["LICENSE", "LICENSE-wheel", "NOTICE", "DISCLAIMER"]
 keywords = ["mlops", "data", "state-machine", "llmops"]
 classifiers = [
   "Development Status :: 4 - Beta",
diff --git a/tests/test_release_config.py b/tests/test_release_config.py
index 7d2f82cf6..4169ae44c 100644
--- a/tests/test_release_config.py
+++ b/tests/test_release_config.py
@@ -152,3 +152,17 @@ def test_examples_include_exclude_coverage():
         errors.append(summary)
 
     assert not errors, "\n".join(errors)
+
+
+@pytest.mark.skipif(sys.version_info < (3, 11), reason="tomllib requires Python 3.11+")
+def test_license_files_include_combined_project_license():
+    """Ensure package metadata advertises the combined project license file."""
+    project_root = Path(__file__).parent.parent
+    pyproject_path = project_root / "pyproject.toml"
+
+    with open(pyproject_path, "rb") as f:
+        config = tomllib.load(f)
+
+    license_files = config.get("project", {}).get("license-files", [])
+
+    assert license_files == ["LICENSE", "LICENSE-wheel", "NOTICE", "DISCLAIMER"]