diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index bce959b..ef81d6b 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -32,9 +32,10 @@
 - Look into this for home assistant configuration https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Home_Assistant https://myme.no/posts/2021-11-25-nixos-home-assistant.html
 
 ## Configuration
-updating passwords: `sops secrets/secrets.yaml`
 set up git configuration for local development: `git config --local include.path .gitconfig`
 
+to update passwords run: `nix shell nixpkgs#sops -c sops secrets/user-passwords.yaml` (NOTE: this depends on the SOPS_AGE_KEY_DIRECTORY environment variable being set)
+
 # Tasks:
 
 ## Tech Debt
diff --git a/enviroments/common/default.nix b/enviroments/common/default.nix
index 397799f..0194ec1 100644
--- a/enviroments/common/default.nix
+++ b/enviroments/common/default.nix
@@ -127,8 +127,8 @@
   };
 
   environment.sessionVariables = rec {
-    AGE_KEY_DIRECTORY = "/var/lib/sops-nix";
-    AGE_KEY_FILE = "${AGE_KEY_DIRECTORY}/key.txt";
+    SOPS_AGE_KEY_DIRECTORY = "/var/lib/sops-nix";
+    SOPS_AGE_KEY_FILE = "${SOPS_AGE_KEY_DIRECTORY}/key.txt";
   };
 
   sops = {
diff --git a/install.sh b/install.sh
index b0a01ef..882a935 100755
--- a/install.sh
+++ b/install.sh
@@ -47,8 +47,8 @@ cleanup() {
 trap cleanup EXIT
 
 # copy key file to temp folder to copy over to target
-mkdir -p $temp$AGE_KEY_DIRECTORY
-cp -r $AGE_KEY_DIRECTORY/* $temp$AGE_KEY_DIRECTORY
+mkdir -p $temp$SOPS_AGE_KEY_DIRECTORY
+cp -r $SOPS_AGE_KEY_DIRECTORY/* $temp$SOPS_AGE_KEY_DIRECTORY
 
 # commit number in this is because the main branch of nixos-anywhere is broken right now
 nix run github:nix-community/nixos-anywhere/b3b6bfebba35d55fba485ceda588984dec74c54f -- --extra-files $temp --flake ".#$flake" ${user:-nixos}@$target