diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index aa60c37..56576ff 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -5,6 +5,6 @@ importlib-metadata==4.11.4
 itsdangerous==2.1.2
 Jinja2==3.1.2
 MarkupSafe==2.1.1
-PyYAML==6.0
 Werkzeug==2.1.2
 zipp==3.8.0
+python-dotenv==0.21.0
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/workbook.py b/workbook.py
index 5bb2c4e..17a9670 100644
--- a/workbook.py
+++ b/workbook.py
@@ -1,14 +1,11 @@
 from flask import Flask, render_template, request, redirect, url_for, jsonify
 from werkzeug.utils import secure_filename
-
 import json
-from pathlib import Path
-
 import sqlite3
+from dotenv import load_dotenv
+from pathlib import Path
+import os
 
-Path(f'static/panels/').mkdir(exist_ok=True)
-Path(f'static/cables/').mkdir(exist_ok=True)
-Path(f'static/snippets/').mkdir(exist_ok=True)
 
 class PrefixMiddleware(object):
     def __init__(self, app, prefix=""):
@@ -16,7 +13,7 @@ class PrefixMiddleware(object):
         self.prefix = prefix
 
     def __call__(self, environ, start_response):
-
+    
         if environ["PATH_INFO"].startswith(self.prefix):
             environ["PATH_INFO"] = environ["PATH_INFO"][len(self.prefix) :]
             environ["SCRIPT_NAME"] = self.prefix
@@ -26,11 +23,16 @@ class PrefixMiddleware(object):
             return ["This url does not belong to the app.".encode()]
 
 
-app = Flask(__name__)
+load_dotenv()
 
+Path(f'static/panels/').mkdir(exist_ok=True)
+Path(f'static/cables/').mkdir(exist_ok=True)
+Path(f'static/snippets/').mkdir(exist_ok=True)
+
+app = Flask(__name__)
 
 # register the middleware to prefix all the requests with our base_url
-app.wsgi_app = PrefixMiddleware(app.wsgi_app, prefix='/soupboat/workbook')
+app.wsgi_app = PrefixMiddleware(app.wsgi_app, prefix=os.environ.get('BASE_URL', ''))
 
 
 def get_db_connection():