diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 19734d8..bc758c8 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -10,4 +10,6 @@ research/
 .eggs/
 *.egg
 build/
-dist/
\ No newline at end of file
+dist/
+# Local secrets
+.env
diff --git a/skills/local-agent-builder/examples/basic-tui-agent/src/config.py b/skills/local-agent-builder/examples/basic-tui-agent/src/config.py
index ef09f1f..9ab5c23 100644
--- a/skills/local-agent-builder/examples/basic-tui-agent/src/config.py
+++ b/skills/local-agent-builder/examples/basic-tui-agent/src/config.py
@@ -2,6 +2,11 @@
 import sys
 import yaml
 import copy
+from dotenv import load_dotenv
+
+# Load .env from the project root (parent of src/), falling back to cwd lookup
+load_dotenv(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "..", ".env"))
+load_dotenv()
 
 def _get_config_path_from_args():
     for i, arg in enumerate(sys.argv):