diff --git a/.env.sample b/.env.sample
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9b73729
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.env.sample
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+OPENAI_API_KEY=your_api_key
diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 673fe09..9c3fa66 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
 venv
-openai_key.txt
+.venv
+.env
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index c990ca3..8e5e62e 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -13,8 +13,11 @@ For a quick demonstration see my [demo video on twitter](https://twitter.com/bio
     python3 -m venv venv
     source venv/bin/activate
     pip install -r requirements.txt
+    cp .env.sample .env
 
-Add your openAI api key to `openai_key.txt` - _warning!_ by default this uses GPT-4 and may make many repeated calls to the api.
+Add your openAI api key to `.env` 
+
+_warning!_ By default wolverine uses GPT-4 and may make many repeated calls to the api.
 
 ## Example Usage
 
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 9d61d58..3923778 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ multidict==6.0.4
 openai==0.27.2
 pycodestyle==2.10.0
 pyflakes==3.0.1
+python-dotenv==1.0.0
 requests==2.28.2
 six==1.16.0
 termcolor==2.2.0
diff --git a/wolverine.py b/wolverine.py
index 42f7ff8..f1d910d 100644
--- a/wolverine.py
+++ b/wolverine.py
@@ -5,13 +5,14 @@ import os
 import shutil
 import subprocess
 import sys
-
 import openai
 from termcolor import cprint
+from dotenv import load_dotenv
+
 
 # Set up the OpenAI API
-with open("openai_key.txt") as f:
-    openai.api_key = f.read().strip()
+load_dotenv()
+openai.api_key = os.getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY")
 
 
 def run_script(script_name, script_args):
@@ -51,7 +52,6 @@ def send_error_to_gpt(file_path, args, error_message, model):
     )
 
     # print(prompt)
-
     response = openai.ChatCompletion.create(
         model=model,
         messages=[