From 6b03425e8c61ba92b05cc00daf9f112f662b3086 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jiayou Chao <jiayou.chao@stonybrook.edu>
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2025 13:35:21 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] feat: add .env support for API keys, update docs, and add
 python-dotenv

---
 .env.sample                     | 14 ++++++++++++++
 README.md                       | 12 ++++++------
 requirements.txt                |  2 ++
 tradingagents/default_config.py |  4 ++++
 4 files changed, 26 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 .env.sample

diff --git a/.env.sample b/.env.sample
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..5337de10
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.env.sample
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+# Finnhub API Key
+FINNHUB_API_KEY="YOUR_FINNHUB_API_KEY"
+
+# OpenAI API Key
+OPENAI_API_KEY="YOUR_OPENAI_API_KEY"
+
+# Data directory
+DATA_DIR="/Users/yluo/Documents/Code/ScAI/FR1-data"
+
+# LLM settings
+LLM_PROVIDER="openai"
+DEEP_THINK_LLM="o4-mini"
+QUICK_THINK_LLM="gpt-4o-mini"
+BACKEND_URL="https://api.openai.com/v1"
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index cac18691..8bb7039e 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -114,15 +114,15 @@ pip install -r requirements.txt
 
 ### Required APIs
 
-You will also need the FinnHub API for financial data. All of our code is implemented with the free tier.
+You will need API keys from FinnHub and OpenAI. You can provide them by creating a `.env` file in the root of the project. Rename the `.env.sample` file to `.env` and add your API keys:
+
 ```bash
-export FINNHUB_API_KEY=$YOUR_FINNHUB_API_KEY
+# .env
+FINNHUB_API_KEY="YOUR_FINNHUB_API_KEY"
+OPENAI_API_KEY="YOUR_OPENAI_API_KEY"
 ```
 
-You will need the OpenAI API for all the agents.
-```bash
-export OPENAI_API_KEY=$YOUR_OPENAI_API_KEY
-```
+The application will automatically load these keys. Alternatively, you can still use environment variables if you prefer.
 
 ### CLI Usage
 
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index a6154cd2..f57b352f 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -24,3 +24,5 @@ rich
 questionary
 langchain_anthropic
 langchain-google-genai
+
+python-dotenv
diff --git a/tradingagents/default_config.py b/tradingagents/default_config.py
index 089e9c24..b443318c 100644
--- a/tradingagents/default_config.py
+++ b/tradingagents/default_config.py
@@ -1,4 +1,8 @@
 import os
+from dotenv import load_dotenv
+
+# Load environment variables from .env file
+load_dotenv()
 
 DEFAULT_CONFIG = {
     "project_dir": os.path.abspath(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), ".")),