diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 937438f..c7ce50b 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ help:
 	@echo "  format      reformat code"
 	@echo "  test        run all the tests"
 	@echo "  shell       open a Poetry shell"
+	@echo "  redis       start a Redis instance with Docker"
 	@echo ""
 	@echo "Check the Makefile to know exactly what each target is doing."
 
@@ -44,7 +45,7 @@ format: $(INSTALL_STAMP)
 .PHONY: test
 test: $(INSTALL_STAMP)
 	#$(POETRY) run pytest ./tests/ --cov-report term-missing --cov-fail-under 100 --cov $(NAME)
-	$(POETRY) run pytest ./tests/
+	$(POETRY) run pytest -s -vv ./tests/
 
 .PHONY: shell
 shell: $(INSTALL_STAMP)
@@ -53,3 +54,7 @@ shell: $(INSTALL_STAMP)
 .PHONY: redis
 redis:
 	docker-compose up -d
+
+
+.PHONY: all
+all: redis $(INSTALL_STAMP) lint test
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/docker-compose.yml b/docker-compose.yml
index e719f54..87e406a 100644
--- a/docker-compose.yml
+++ b/docker-compose.yml
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ version: "3.8"
 services:
   redis:
     image: "redislabs/redismod:edge"
-    entrypoint: ["redis-server", "--appendonly", "yes", "--loadmodule", "/usr/lib/redis/modules/rejson.so"]
+    entrypoint: ["redis-server", "--appendonly", "yes", "--loadmodule", "/usr/lib/redis/modules/rejson.so", "--loadmodule", "/usr/lib/redis/modules/redisearch.so"]
     restart: always
     ports:
       - "6380:6379"
diff --git a/poetry.lock b/poetry.lock
index 31f55eb..bba2c2b 100644
--- a/poetry.lock
+++ b/poetry.lock
@@ -513,6 +513,17 @@ toml = "*"
 [package.extras]
 testing = ["argcomplete", "hypothesis (>=3.56)", "mock", "nose", "requests", "xmlschema"]
 
+[[package]]
+name = "python-dotenv"
+version = "0.19.1"
+description = "Read key-value pairs from a .env file and set them as environment variables"
+category = "main"
+optional = false
+python-versions = ">=3.5"
+
+[package.extras]
+cli = ["click (>=5.0)"]
+
 [[package]]
 name = "python-ulid"
 version = "1.0.3"
@@ -645,7 +656,7 @@ python-versions = "!=3.0.*,!=3.1.*,!=3.2.*,!=3.3.*,!=3.4.*,>=2.7"
 [metadata]
 lock-version = "1.1"
 python-versions = "^3.8"
-content-hash = "f1ccd73314f307ce41497d093ddce99cfb96ebf1814e854a94e37d5156647967"
+content-hash = "1bc742aa620496b8823ab47f485c0e7a24c64ba1e54521d8485ec79d7e453016"
 
 [metadata.files]
 aioredis = [
@@ -883,6 +894,10 @@ pytest = [
     {file = "pytest-6.2.5-py3-none-any.whl", hash = "sha256:7310f8d27bc79ced999e760ca304d69f6ba6c6649c0b60fb0e04a4a77cacc134"},
     {file = "pytest-6.2.5.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:131b36680866a76e6781d13f101efb86cf674ebb9762eb70d3082b6f29889e89"},
 ]
+python-dotenv = [
+    {file = "python-dotenv-0.19.1.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:14f8185cc8d494662683e6914addcb7e95374771e707601dfc70166946b4c4b8"},
+    {file = "python_dotenv-0.19.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl", hash = "sha256:bbd3da593fc49c249397cbfbcc449cf36cb02e75afc8157fcc6a81df6fb7750a"},
+]
 python-ulid = [
     {file = "python-ulid-1.0.3.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:5dd8b969312a40e2212cec9c1ad63f25d4b6eafd92ee3195883e0287b6e9d19e"},
     {file = "python_ulid-1.0.3-py3-none-any.whl", hash = "sha256:8704dc20f547f531fe3a41d4369842d737a0f275403b909d0872e7ea0fe8d6f2"},
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 66c73e5..037170e 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ pptree = "^3.1"
 types-redis = "^3.5.9"
 types-six = "^1.16.1"
 python-ulid = "^1.0.3"
+python-dotenv = "^0.19.1"
 
 [tool.poetry.dev-dependencies]
 mypy = "^0.910"
diff --git a/redis_developer/connections.py b/redis_developer/connections.py
index f8ba77f..a49e8b9 100644
--- a/redis_developer/connections.py
+++ b/redis_developer/connections.py
@@ -1,5 +1,26 @@
+import os
+
+import dotenv
 import redis
 
 
-def get_redis_connection() -> redis.Redis:
-    return redis.Redis(decode_responses=True)
+dotenv.load_dotenv()
+
+URL = os.environ.get("REDIS_OM_URL", None)
+
+
+def get_redis_connection(**kwargs) -> redis.Redis:
+    # If someone passed in a 'url' parameter, or specified a REDIS_OM_URL
+    # environment variable, we'll create the Redis client from the URL.
+    url = kwargs.pop("url", URL)
+    if not url:
+        import ipdb
+
+        ipdb.set_trace()
+    if url:
+        return redis.from_url(url, **kwargs)
+
+    # Decode from UTF-8 by default
+    if "decode_responses" not in kwargs:
+        kwargs["decode_responses"] = True
+    return redis.Redis(**kwargs)
diff --git a/redis_developer/model/model.py b/redis_developer/model/model.py
index bc4464e..08a38cd 100644
--- a/redis_developer/model/model.py
+++ b/redis_developer/model/model.py
@@ -37,6 +37,7 @@ from pydantic.utils import Representation
 from redis.client import Pipeline
 from ulid import ULID
 
+from ..connections import get_redis_connection
 from .encoders import jsonable_encoder
 from .render_tree import render_tree
 from .token_escaper import TokenEscaper
@@ -997,7 +998,7 @@ class ModelMeta(ModelMetaclass):
             )
         if not getattr(new_class._meta, "database", None):
             new_class._meta.database = getattr(
-                base_meta, "database", redis.Redis(decode_responses=True)
+                base_meta, "database", get_redis_connection()
             )
         if not getattr(new_class._meta, "primary_key_creator_cls", None):
             new_class._meta.primary_key_creator_cls = getattr(
diff --git a/tests/conftest.py b/tests/conftest.py
index 0b1b365..2e1fbd5 100644
--- a/tests/conftest.py
+++ b/tests/conftest.py
@@ -17,7 +17,6 @@ def redis():
 
 @pytest.fixture
 def key_prefix():
-    # TODO
     yield "redis-developer"