diff --git a/.env.example b/.env.example
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..153a7626
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.env.example
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-123
+FINNHUB_API_KEY=
+GOOGLE_API_KEY=
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index cac18691..65f0956d 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -124,6 +124,11 @@ You will need the OpenAI API for all the agents.
 export OPENAI_API_KEY=$YOUR_OPENAI_API_KEY
 ```
 
+To help consolidate the variables in an .env file, you can copy the .env.example. The main.py script will pick up from there.
+```bash
+cp .env.example .env
+```
+
 ### CLI Usage
 
 You can also try out the CLI directly by running:
diff --git a/main.py b/main.py
index 6c8ae3d9..15428c0c 100644
--- a/main.py
+++ b/main.py
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 from tradingagents.graph.trading_graph import TradingAgentsGraph
 from tradingagents.default_config import DEFAULT_CONFIG
+from dotenv import load_dotenv
+
+load_dotenv()
 
 # Create a custom config
 config = DEFAULT_CONFIG.copy()
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index a6154cd2..d8de9fe8 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -24,3 +24,4 @@ rich
 questionary
 langchain_anthropic
 langchain-google-genai
+python-dotenv