diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index ac1e768..39995bf 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ Use [Docker](https://docker.com)
 
 ### Arguments
 
-Specify these eg. `docker compose -e FOO=bar up`:
+Specify these eg. `FOO=bar docker compose up`:
 
 - `FREQUENCY`: Sets how often (in hours) the pipeline should run.
 - `TEST`: Runs the loader in test mode when set to true, skipping certain data insertions.
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ Specify these eg. `docker compose -e FOO=bar up`:
 
 > [!NOTE]
 > The flag `NO_CACHE` does not mean that files will not get downloaded to your local
-> storage (specifically, the ./data directory). It only means that we'll 
+> storage (specifically, the ./data directory). It only means that we'll
 > delete these temporary files from ./data once we're done processing them.
 
 These arguments are all configurable in the `docker-compose.yml` file.
diff --git a/core/utils.py b/core/utils.py
index 6185e4c..19c5e76 100644
--- a/core/utils.py
+++ b/core/utils.py
@@ -21,6 +21,6 @@ def build_query_params(
 
 # env vars could be true or 1, or anything else -- here's a centralized location to
 # handle that
-def env_vars(env_var: str, default: str):
+def env_vars(env_var: str, default: str) -> bool:
     var = getenv(env_var, default).lower()
     return var == "true" or var == "1"