diff --git a/agent/Dockerfile b/agent/Dockerfile
index 2e3ca9f..f0a1e24 100644
--- a/agent/Dockerfile
+++ b/agent/Dockerfile
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 # FabledCurator GPU agent — runs on the desktop with the GPU.
-# CUDA runtime so onnxruntime-gpu can use the card; ffmpeg for video frames.
-FROM nvidia/cuda:12.4.1-runtime-ubuntu22.04
+# CUDA + cuDNN runtime so onnxruntime-gpu can use the card (it needs cuDNN 9 —
+# the plain -runtime image lacks it: "libcudnn.so.9: cannot open shared object
+# file"); ffmpeg for video frames.
+FROM nvidia/cuda:12.4.1-cudnn-runtime-ubuntu22.04
 
 ENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1
 RUN apt-get update \