diff --git a/.env.example b/.env.example
index 9d74d24..f531643 100644
--- a/.env.example
+++ b/.env.example
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ LLM_API_KEY=
 LOGFIRE_TOKEN=
 
 # PostgreSQL (asyncpg connection string)
-DATABASE_URL=postgresql+asyncpg://agent_alpha:agent_alpha@localhost:5432/agent_alpha
+DATABASE_URL=postgresql+asyncpg://agent_alpha:agent_alpha@postgres:5432/agent_alpha
 
 # Valkey / Redis
-VALKEY_URL=redis://localhost:6379/0
+VALKEY_URL=redis://valkey:6379/0
diff --git a/docker-compose.yml b/docker-compose.yml
index 12c945d..7095e80 100644
--- a/docker-compose.yml
+++ b/docker-compose.yml
@@ -25,8 +25,9 @@ services:
       # host .env file (with localhost URLs) does NOT override them.
       - LLM_BASE_URL=${LLM_BASE_URL:-http://host.docker.internal:11434/v1}
       - LLM_MODEL=${LLM_MODEL:-llama}
-      - DATABASE_URL=postgresql+asyncpg://agent_alpha:agent_alpha@postgres:5432/agent_alpha
-      - VALKEY_URL=redis://valkey:6379/0
+      - DATABASE_URL=${DATABASE_URL:-postgresql+asyncpg://agent_alpha:agent_alpha@postgres:5432/agent_alpha}
+      - VALKEY_URL=${VALKEY_URL:-redis://valkey:6379/0}      
+
     restart: unless-stopped
     depends_on:
       postgres: