diff --git a/.env b/.env
index 491eb6793..00a1cf5a4 100644
--- a/.env
+++ b/.env
@@ -40,5 +40,3 @@ DC3_GRAFANA_PORT=3000
 DC3_KIBANA_PORT=5601
 DC3_ES_JAVA_OPTS=-Xms512m -Xmx512m
 DC3_LS_JAVA_OPTS=-Xms256m -Xmx256m
-
-
diff --git a/.env.example b/.env.example
index b5a75eb3d..00a1cf5a4 100644
--- a/.env.example
+++ b/.env.example
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
-# Copy this file to .env in the repository root before running podman compose.
-# These values are used for Docker Compose interpolation only.
+# Docker Compose interpolation defaults for the stacks under dc3/
+# Run compose commands from the repository root so this file is loaded automatically.
 # Application runtime variables still live in dc3/env/dev.env or dc3/env/dev.env.sh.
 
 # Shared image / logging defaults
@@ -40,4 +40,3 @@ DC3_GRAFANA_PORT=3000
 DC3_KIBANA_PORT=5601
 DC3_ES_JAVA_OPTS=-Xms512m -Xmx512m
 DC3_LS_JAVA_OPTS=-Xms256m -Xmx256m
-