diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 60e45bd..c446a9c 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -46,6 +46,12 @@ I'm not sure about auth yet, but probably NextAuth.
 The project is meant to be self hosted, with a single docker compose file to deploy the application and the database.
 It's still in the early stages of development, so it's not yet ready for production.
 
+I can't get file watching to work with the docker compose file, so I'm running the dev server natively, with postgres in a container.
+
 ## License
 
 This project is licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0 - see the LICENSE file for details.
+
+### db command
+
+docker compose exec db psql -U socialdb -d socialdb-db
diff --git a/drizzle.config.ts b/drizzle.config.ts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6aefb42
--- /dev/null
+++ b/drizzle.config.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+import { config } from "dotenv";
+import { defineConfig } from "drizzle-kit";
+
+config({ path: ".env" });
+
+export default defineConfig({
+  schema: "./src/db/schema.ts",
+  out: "./src/db/migrations",
+  dialect: "postgresql",
+  dbCredentials: {
+    url: `postgresql://${process.env.POSTGRES_USER}:${process.env.POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@localhost:5432/${process.env.POSTGRES_DB}`,
+  },
+});
diff --git a/src/db/drizzle.ts b/src/db/drizzle.ts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7e33b0d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/db/drizzle.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+import { config } from "dotenv";
+import { drizzle } from "drizzle-orm/node-postgres";
+
+config({ path: ".env" });
+
+export const db = drizzle(
+  `postgresql://${process.env.POSTGRES_USER}:${process.env.POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@localhost:5432/${process.env.POSTGRES_DB}`,
+);