diff --git a/.github/workflows/nightly.yaml b/.github/workflows/nightly.yaml
index 907741ca..e3625157 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/nightly.yaml
+++ b/.github/workflows/nightly.yaml
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@ jobs:
         shell: bash
         run: |
           pip3 list | grep setuptools || echo "setuptools not installed" # show version
+          pip3 install setuptools # TODO: this should be a dependency of odrive
           pip3 install odrive
         env:
           # TODO: this is a workaround for https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/issues/2353 and we
diff --git a/tools/setup.py b/tools/setup.py
index 83d5c1ed..2e7fcc65 100644
--- a/tools/setup.py
+++ b/tools/setup.py
@@ -117,6 +117,7 @@ try:
       'matplotlib', # Required to run the liveplotter
       'monotonic', # For compatibility with older python versions
       'appdirs',  # Used to find caching directory
+      'setuptools',  # ubuntu-latest on GitHub Actions fails to install odrive without this dependency
       'pywin32 >= 222; platform_system == "Windows"' # Required for fancy terminal features on Windows
     ],
     package_data={'': ['version.txt']},