diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 6852f90d3e..64a398d2dd 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -8,6 +8,14 @@ Backstage is an open platform for building developer portals.
 
 ## Getting started
 
+### Secrets
+
+To setup secrets, copy the `secrets.env.example` to `secrets.env` as such:
+
+```bash
+$ cp secrets.env.example secrets.env
+```
+
 ### Protobuf Definitions
 
 To generate the Protobuf definitions in Go and TypeScript, run the following command from the root to run [Prototool](https://github.com/uber/prototool):
diff --git a/secrets.env.example b/secrets.env.example
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..c83bd2158b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/secrets.env.example
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+NODE_ENV=development
+NODE_DEBUG=true
+REACT_APP_GRAPHQL_API=""
+BOSS_GH_ACCESS_TOKEN=""