diff --git a/.env.example b/.env.example
index 9847a1d..42e6d0f 100644
--- a/.env.example
+++ b/.env.example
@@ -1 +1,2 @@
-OPENAI_API_KEY=
\ No newline at end of file
+OPENAI_API_KEY=
+MODEL="gpt-4"
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 87e6105..04f6d81 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 # .env
 .env
+.env.local
 
 # __pycache__
 __pycache__
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index ecaf7a2..1fbfe86 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ The notebook also breaks down how the script works.
 # Usage
 
 Run with `$ python3 TermGPT.py`
-You will need to create a `.env` file similar to https://github.com/Sentdex/TermGPT/blob/main/.env.example, or set `OPENAI_API_KEY` manually.
+You will need to create a `.env` file similar to https://github.com/Sentdex/TermGPT/blob/main/.env.example, or set `OPENAI_API_KEY` and `MODEL` manually.
 
 From here, you make your programming/development request. The script will run and query GPT-4 for a series of terminal commands to run to achieve this objective. This is including, but not limited to: reading files, writing code, reading websites, running code, running terminal commands...etc. 
 
diff --git a/TermGPT.py b/TermGPT.py
index 4a432cd..e98c40b 100644
--- a/TermGPT.py
+++ b/TermGPT.py
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@
 READ_RE_PATTERN = r"--r \[(.*?)\]"
 WEB_RE_PATTERN = r"--w \[(.*?)\]"
 
-def gpt_query(model="gpt-4", max_retries=15, sleep_time=2):
+def gpt_query(model=os.environ.get("MODEL"), max_retries=15, sleep_time=2):
     global message_history
     retries = 0
     logger = logging.getLogger()