diff --git a/MANIFEST.in b/MANIFEST.in
index 491f4fe..d74c450 100644
--- a/MANIFEST.in
+++ b/MANIFEST.in
@@ -10,6 +10,6 @@ recursive-exclude * *.py[co]
 
 recursive-include docs *.rst conf.py Makefile make.bat
 
-recursive-include *.yml
+recursive-include mciutil *.yml
 include versioneer.py
 include mciutil/_version.py
diff --git a/tests/test_cli_common.py b/tests/test_cli_common.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8873c7c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/test_cli_common.py
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+from __future__ import absolute_import
+import unittest
+import os
+
+from mciutil.cli.common import get_config_filename
+
+
+class CliCommonTests(unittest.TestCase):
+    def test_get_config_filename(self):
+        """
+        check that package default config exists, otherwise fail
+        this will show up on remote build when package is installed
+        rather than pointing to development environment
+        """
+        filename = get_config_filename('mideu.yml')
+        self.assertTrue(os.path.exists(filename))
+
+        print("config filename={0}".format(filename))
+        if not os.path.isdir(".git"):
+            print("Checking that config from site-packages")
+            self.assertNotEqual(filename.find("site-packages"), -1)
+
+if __name__ == '__main__':
+    unittest.main()