diff --git a/Tiltfile b/Tiltfile
index 8f89a9c..53dde50 100644
--- a/Tiltfile
+++ b/Tiltfile
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 update_settings(max_parallel_updates=4)
 
+load('ext://dotenv', 'dotenv')
+dotenv()                    # defaults to .env in the current directory
+
 local_resource(
     "server",
     cmd="npm ci --no-audit --no-fund",