diff --git a/.envrc b/.envrc
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0f56f5a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.envrc
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+# Orchestration file to load environment variables from the `.env` and `.secrets` files.
+# Environment variables go here, and can be read in by Python using `os.getenv`:
+#
+# Only used by systems with `direnv` (https://direnv.net/) installed. Environment
+# variables can be read in by Python using `os.getenv` _without_ using `python-dotenv`:
+#
+#   --------------------------------------------------------
+#   import os
+#
+#   # Example variable
+#   EXAMPLE_VARIABLE = os.getenv("EXAMPLE_VARIABLE")
+#   --------------------------------------------------------
+#
+# To ensure the `sed` command below works correctly, make sure all file paths in environment variables are absolute
+# (recommended), or are relative paths using other environment variables (works for Python users only). Environment
+# variable names are expected to contain letters, numbers or underscores only.
+#
+# DO NOT STORE SECRETS HERE - this file is version-controlled! You should store secrets in a `.secrets` file, which is
+# not version-controlled - this can then be sourced here, using `source_env ".secrets"`.
+
+# Extract the variables to `.env` if required. Note `.env` is NOT version-controlled, so `.secrets` will not be committed
+#sed -n 's/^export \(.*\)$/\1/p' .envrc .secrets | sed -e 's?$(pwd)?'"$(pwd)"'?g' | sed -e 's?$\([a-zA-Z0-9_]\{1,\}\)?${\1}?g' >> .env
+
+# Add the working directory to `PYTHONPATH`; allows Jupyter notebooks in the `notebooks` folder to import `tsfel`
+export PYTHONPATH="$PYTHONPATH:$(pwd)/tsfel"
+
+# Load the `.env` file
+# dotenv .env
+
+# Import secrets from an untracked file `.secrets` (if it exists)
+dotenv_if_exists .secrets
+
+eval "$(conda shell.bash hook)"
+
+conda activate python3.11
+source .venv-dev/bin/activate
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 74e2ac5..1ce079e 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -90,8 +90,7 @@ celerybeat-schedule
 
 # Environments
 .env
-.venv
-.venv-docs
+.venv*
 env/
 venv/
 ENV/