diff --git a/container_usage.md b/container_usage.md
index a6949e9..664230d 100644
--- a/container_usage.md
+++ b/container_usage.md
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ docker run -d --name=jikan-rest -p 8080:8080 -v ./.env:/app/.env jikanme/jikan-r
 - Container listens on port `8080` for http requests
 - By mounting your .env file on the container via `-v ./.env:/app/.env` command line option for `docker run` you can configure Jikan API.
 
-> **Important**: You need to either mount a `.env` file on the container or specify the configuration through environment variables to make Jikan API work. Jikan API needs a MongoDB and optionally a search engine. In high load environments additionally a `redis` server is required too. The configuration should point to the correct address of these services.
+> **Important**: You need to either mount a `.env` file on the container or specify the configuration through environment variables to make Jikan API work in the container. Jikan API needs a MongoDB and optionally a search engine. In high load environments additionally a `redis` server is required too. The configuration should point to the correct address of these services.
 
 > **Tip**: If you run the container on a non-default network, you can use the container names in the configuration to specify the address of services like MongoDB and TypeSense/ElasticSearch. However this is not a concern if you use `docker-compose`.
 
@@ -16,6 +16,15 @@ docker build -t jikan-rest:nightly .
 docker run -d --name=jikan-rest -p 8080:8080 -v ./.env:/app/.env jikan-rest:nightly
 ```
 
+### Docker compose usage
+
+```
+docker-compose up
+```
+Docker compose will use the `.env` file from the folder where you execute it from to load configurations for the services. If you don't have a `.env` file yet in the folder, copy the `.env.dist` file, and set the passwords.
+
+> **Please note**: The syntax rules of docker compose for `.env` applies here: https://docs.docker.com/compose/env-file/#syntax-rules
+
 #### Note for Podman
 
 If you build the container image yourself with podman, the resulting image format will be OCI by default.
@@ -51,6 +60,9 @@ You can read more about additional configuration options on the [Configuration W
 
 - Jikan uses RoadRunner as an application server within the container.
 - Both `wget` and `curl` exists in the container image.
+- The script in `docker-entrypoint.php` sets safe defaults. Because of this by default the app won't behave the same way as the publicly available version of the app at [https://api.jikan.moe/v4](https://api.jikan.moe/v4). The default settings:
+  - No redis caching
+  - No search index usage (inaccurate search results)
 - Via Roadrunner multiple processes are running in the container, and their logs are aggregated and forwarded to `stdout`.
   - These processes are:
     - the php processes ingesting the http requests
diff --git a/docker-compose.yml b/docker-compose.yml
index e3e82c5..f7815e2 100644
--- a/docker-compose.yml
+++ b/docker-compose.yml
@@ -18,14 +18,14 @@ services:
       APP_DEBUG: 'true'
       APP_ENV: local
       REDIS_HOST: redis
-      REDIS_PASSWORD: redis_password
+      REDIS_PASSWORD: "${REDIS_PASSWORD:-null}"
       DB_CONNECTION: mongodb
       DB_HOST: mongodb
       DB_DATABASE: jikan
       DB_PORT: 27017
       DB_ADMIN: jikan
-      DB_USERNAME: jikan_user
-      DB_PASSWORD: forge
+      DB_USERNAME: "${DB_USERNAME}"
+      DB_PASSWORD: "${DB_PASSWORD}"
     volumes:
       - /etc/passwd:/etc/passwd:ro
       - /etc/group:/etc/group:ro
@@ -56,6 +56,9 @@ services:
     ports:
       - '27017/tcp'
     command: --wiredTigerCacheSizeGB 1
+    environment:
+      MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_USERNAME: "${DB_USERNAME:-root}"
+      MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_PASSWORD: "${DB_PASSWORD}"
     healthcheck:
       test: echo 'db.runCommand("ping").ok' | mongo mongodb://localhost:27017 --quiet
       interval: 30s
@@ -64,7 +67,10 @@ services:
 
   redis:
     image: redis:7-alpine
-    command: redis-server --requirepass redis_password
+    command:
+      - /bin/sh
+      - -c
+      - redis-server --requirepass "$${REDIS_PASSWORD:?REDIS_PASSWORD variable is not set}"
     volumes:
       - redis-data:/data:rw
     ports:
@@ -76,7 +82,10 @@ services:
 
   typesense:
     image: typesense/typesense:0.23.1
-    command: -data-dir /data --api-key "typesenseapikeycomeshere"
+    entrypoint: /bin/sh
+    command:
+      - -c
+      - /opt/typesense-server --data-dir /data --api-key "$${TYPESENSE_API_KEY:?TYPESENSE_API_KEY variable is not set}"
     restart: no
     volumes:
       - typesense-data:/data