diff --git a/assets/js/Containers/FrevaGPT/index.js b/assets/js/Containers/FrevaGPT/index.js
index 8421a977..7867ed89 100644
--- a/assets/js/Containers/FrevaGPT/index.js
+++ b/assets/js/Containers/FrevaGPT/index.js
@@ -91,11 +91,8 @@ class FrevaGPT extends React.Component {
     };
 
     const getBotModels = async () => {
-      const queryObject = {
-        auth_key: process.env.BOT_AUTH_KEY,
-      };
       const response = await fetch(
-        `/api/chatbot/availablechatbots?` + objectToQueryString(queryObject)
+        `/api/chatbot/availablechatbots?`
       );
       this.setState({ botModelList: await response.json() });
     };
@@ -161,10 +158,8 @@ class FrevaGPT extends React.Component {
   async fetchData(input) {
     const queryObject = {
       input,
-      auth_key: process.env.BOT_AUTH_KEY,
       thread_id: this.props.frevaGPT.thread,
       chatbot: this.state.botModel,
-      freva_config: "/work/ch1187/clint/freva-dev/freva/evaluation_system.conf",
     };
 
     // response of a new bot request is streamed
@@ -280,7 +275,6 @@ class FrevaGPT extends React.Component {
     const response = await fetch(
       `/api/chatbot/getthread?` +
         new URLSearchParams({
-          auth_key: process.env.BOT_AUTH_KEY,
           thread_id: thread,
         }).toString()
     );
@@ -295,7 +289,6 @@ class FrevaGPT extends React.Component {
       await fetch(
         `/api/chatbot/stop?` +
           new URLSearchParams({
-            auth_key: process.env.BOT_AUTH_KEY,
             thread_id: this.props.frevaGPT.thread,
           }).toString()
       );
diff --git a/bot/proxyviews.py b/bot/proxyviews.py
index ebb5d065..393c75eb 100644
--- a/bot/proxyviews.py
+++ b/bot/proxyviews.py
@@ -12,6 +12,10 @@ def get(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
         base_url = urljoin(settings.CHAT_BOT_URL, path)
         params = request.GET.dict()
 
+        # adding bot auth key and freva conf
+        params["auth_key"] = settings.CHAT_BOT_AUTH_KEY
+        params["freva_config"] = settings.CHAT_BOT_FREVA_CONFIG
+
         try:
             upstream_response = requests.get(base_url[:-1], params=params, stream=True)
             upstream_response.raise_for_status()
diff --git a/django_evaluation/settings/local.py b/django_evaluation/settings/local.py
index d744d55e..9724abd0 100755
--- a/django_evaluation/settings/local.py
+++ b/django_evaluation/settings/local.py
@@ -298,7 +298,10 @@ def _set_favicon(html_color: str, project_root: Path) -> None:
     "variable",
 ]
 MENU_ENTRIES = []
+
 CHAT_BOT_URL = "http://vader5-icpub.lvt.dkrz.de:8502"
+CHAT_BOT_AUTH_KEY = os.environ.get("CHAT_BOT_AUTH_KEY")
+CHAT_BOT_FREVA_CONFIG = os.environ.get("CHAT_BOT_AUTH_KEY")
 
 if os.getenv("CHAT_BOT", "0").isdigit():
     ACTIVATE_CHAT_BOT = bool(int(os.getenv("CHAT_BOT", "0")))