diff --git a/cli/start.go b/cli/start.go
index 0d85062173..8c3282c902 100644
--- a/cli/start.go
+++ b/cli/start.go
@@ -331,7 +331,7 @@ func start() *cobra.Command {
 		"Specifies the path to the private key for the certificate. It requires a PEM-encoded file")
 	cliflag.StringVarP(root.Flags(), &tlsMinVersion, "tls-min-version", "", "CODER_TLS_MIN_VERSION", "tls12",
 		`Specifies the minimum supported version of TLS. Accepted values are "tls10", "tls11", "tls12" or "tls13"`)
-	cliflag.BoolVarP(root.Flags(), &useTunnel, "tunnel", "", "CODER_DEV_TUNNEL", false, "Serve dev mode through a Cloudflare Tunnel for easy setup")
+	cliflag.BoolVarP(root.Flags(), &useTunnel, "tunnel", "", "CODER_DEV_TUNNEL", true, "Serve dev mode through a Cloudflare Tunnel for easy setup")
 	_ = root.Flags().MarkHidden("tunnel")
 	cliflag.BoolVarP(root.Flags(), &traceDatadog, "trace-datadog", "", "CODER_TRACE_DATADOG", false, "Send tracing data to a datadog agent")