diff --git a/.env.example b/.env.example
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c74237d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.env.example
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+# copy this to .env and fill in your values
+
+ADMIN_USERNAME=admin
+ADMIN_PASSWORD=
+
+DATABASE_PATH=./archive.sqlite
+DATABASE_URL=postgresql://user:password@localhost:5432/duriin
+
+SEC_USER_AGENT=
+
+ALPHA_VANTAGE_API_KEY=
+FINNHUB_API_KEY=
+
+OPEN_ROUTER_API_KEY=
+OPEN_ROUTER_LLM_MODEL=qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507
+OPEN_ROUTER_EMBED_MODEL=qwen/qwen3-embedding-8b
+
+GDELT_BQ_PROJECT=
+GDELT_BQ_KEY_FILE=./gdelt-credentials.json
+
+SERVER_PORT=3001
+SERVER_HOST=0.0.0.0