diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 4166274..08a9da7 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -4,6 +4,14 @@ A relay based on [Khatru](https://github.com/fiatjaf/khatru) with a invite hiera
 
 ### Deploy with docker
 
-1. create and manually add a pubkey to users.json: `touch users.json && echo '{"your nostr hex pubkey":""}' > users.json`
-2. deploy with docker: `docker run -p 3334:3334 -v ./users.json:/app/users.json -v ./db:/app/db -e DOMAIN=yourdomain.example.com -e RELAY_NAME="your relay name" -e RELAY_PUBKEY="your nostr hex pubkey" tijlxyz/khatru-pyramid:latest`
+```
+docker run \
+    -p 3334:3334 \
+    -v ./users.json:/app/users.json \
+    -v ./db:/app/db \
+    -e DOMAIN=yourdomain.example.com \
+    -e RELAY_NAME="your relay name" \
+    -e RELAY_PUBKEY="your nostr hex pubkey" \
+    tijlxyz/khatru-pyramid:latest
+```
 
diff --git a/example.env b/example.env
index a2bf629..6817aa3 100644
--- a/example.env
+++ b/example.env
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-
 # Server Settings
 DOMAIN="example.com"
 PORT="3334" # optional
diff --git a/whitelist.go b/whitelist.go
index b445525..607f333 100644
--- a/whitelist.go
+++ b/whitelist.go
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ package main
 
 import (
 	"encoding/json"
+	"errors"
 	"fmt"
 	"os"
 
@@ -89,7 +90,20 @@ func removeDescendantsFromWhitelist(ancestor string) {
 func loadWhitelist() error {
 	b, err := os.ReadFile(s.UserdataPath)
 	if err != nil {
-		return err
+		// If the whitelist file does not exist, with RELAY_PUBKEY
+		if errors.Is(err, os.ErrNotExist) {
+			whitelist[s.RelayPubkey] = ""
+			jsonBytes, err := json.Marshal(&whitelist)
+			if err != nil {
+				return err
+			}
+			if err := os.WriteFile(s.UserdataPath, jsonBytes, 0644); err != nil {
+				return err
+			}
+			return nil
+		} else {
+			return err
+		}
 	}
 
 	if err := json.Unmarshal(b, &whitelist); err != nil {