diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 60b07a824..ee808de76 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -31,6 +31,7 @@ art
 fschat @ git+https://github.com/lm-sys/FastChat.git@27a05b04a35510afb1d767ae7e5990cbd278f8fe
 gradio==3.50.2
 tensorboard
+python-dotenv==1.0.1
 
 mamba-ssm==1.2.0.post1
 
diff --git a/src/axolotl/cli/inference.py b/src/axolotl/cli/inference.py
index 86ad8409f..adc991456 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/cli/inference.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/cli/inference.py
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ from pathlib import Path
 
 import fire
 import transformers
+from dotenv import load_dotenv
 
 from axolotl.cli import (
     do_inference,
@@ -33,4 +34,5 @@ def do_cli(config: Path = Path("examples/"), gradio=False, **kwargs):
 
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":
+    load_dotenv()
     fire.Fire(do_cli)
diff --git a/src/axolotl/cli/merge_lora.py b/src/axolotl/cli/merge_lora.py
index 8db3fa989..6588b5ee4 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/cli/merge_lora.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/cli/merge_lora.py
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ from pathlib import Path
 
 import fire
 import transformers
+from dotenv import load_dotenv
 
 from axolotl.cli import do_merge_lora, load_cfg, print_axolotl_text_art
 from axolotl.common.cli import TrainerCliArgs
@@ -48,4 +49,5 @@ def do_cli(config: Path = Path("examples/"), **kwargs):
 
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":
+    load_dotenv()
     fire.Fire(do_cli)
diff --git a/src/axolotl/cli/preprocess.py b/src/axolotl/cli/preprocess.py
index f43277e49..5ec279d4b 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/cli/preprocess.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/cli/preprocess.py
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ import fire
 import transformers
 from accelerate import init_empty_weights
 from colorama import Fore
+from dotenv import load_dotenv
 from transformers import AutoModelForCausalLM
 
 from axolotl.cli import (
@@ -86,4 +87,5 @@ def do_cli(config: Union[Path, str] = Path("examples/"), **kwargs):
 
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":
+    load_dotenv()
     fire.Fire(do_cli)
diff --git a/src/axolotl/cli/shard.py b/src/axolotl/cli/shard.py
index 48f22790a..196c0e99a 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/cli/shard.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/cli/shard.py
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ from typing import Union
 
 import fire
 import transformers
+from dotenv import load_dotenv
 
 from axolotl.cli import load_cfg, print_axolotl_text_art
 from axolotl.common.cli import TrainerCliArgs, load_model_and_tokenizer
@@ -40,4 +41,5 @@ def do_cli(config: Union[Path, str] = Path("examples/"), **kwargs):
 
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":
+    load_dotenv()
     fire.Fire(do_cli)
diff --git a/src/axolotl/cli/train.py b/src/axolotl/cli/train.py
index 7bb4a5184..050f18a05 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/cli/train.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/cli/train.py
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ from pathlib import Path
 from typing import Tuple, Union
 
 import fire
+from dotenv import load_dotenv
 from transformers.hf_argparser import HfArgumentParser
 from transformers.modeling_utils import PreTrainedModel
 from transformers.tokenization_utils import PreTrainedTokenizer
@@ -67,4 +68,5 @@ def do_train(cfg, cli_args) -> Tuple[PreTrainedModel, PreTrainedTokenizer]:
 
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":
+    load_dotenv()
     fire.Fire(do_cli)