diff --git a/TODO.md b/TODO.md
index c81ad1ac..153f3e51 100644
--- a/TODO.md
+++ b/TODO.md
@@ -237,6 +237,8 @@ These are roughly in order of completition
 - [x] flamegraphs show 52% of the time to be in tracing. replace with simpler logging
 - [x] add optional display name to rpc configs
 - [x] add locking around running migrations
+- [x] cli tool for checking config
+- [x] web3_proxy_cli command should read database settings from config
 - [-] add configurable size limits to all the Caches
   - instead of configuring each cache with MB sizes, have one value for total memory footprint and then percentages for each cache
 - [ ] add block timestamp to the /status page
@@ -407,7 +409,6 @@ in another repo: event subscriber
   - after looking at my request logs, i think its worth doing this. no point hitting the backends with requests for blocks multiple times. will also help with cache hit rates since we can keep recent blocks in a separate cache
 - [ ] Public bsc server got “0” for block data limit (ninicoin)
 - [ ] cli tool for resetting api keys
-- [ ] cli tool for checking config
 - [ ] benchmarks of the different Cache implementations (futures vs dash)
 - [ ] Advanced load testing scripts so we can find optimal cost servers 
   - [ ] benchmarks from https://github.com/llamafolio/llamafolio-api/
@@ -499,7 +500,6 @@ in another repo: event subscriber
 - [ ] web3 on rpc1 exited without errors. maybe promote some shutdown messages from debug to info?
 - [ ] better handling for offline http servers
   - if we get a connection refused, we should remove the server's block info so it is taken out of rotation
-- [ ] web3_proxy_cli command should read database settings from config
 - [ ] how should we handle reverting transactions? they won't confirm for a while after we send them
 - [ ] allow configuration of the expiration time of bearer tokens. currently defaults to 4 weeks
 - [ ] emit stat when an IP/key goes over rate limits
diff --git a/web3_proxy/src/bin/web3_proxy_cli/main.rs b/web3_proxy/src/bin/web3_proxy_cli/main.rs
index 96f6a65e..08b68cb1 100644
--- a/web3_proxy/src/bin/web3_proxy_cli/main.rs
+++ b/web3_proxy/src/bin/web3_proxy_cli/main.rs
@@ -2,13 +2,22 @@ mod check_config;
 mod clear_migration_lock;
 mod create_user;
 
+use std::fs;
+
 use argh::FromArgs;
-use web3_proxy::app::{get_db, get_migrated_db};
+use web3_proxy::{
+    app::{get_db, get_migrated_db},
+    config::TopConfig,
+};
 
 #[derive(Debug, FromArgs)]
 /// Command line interface for admins to interact with web3_proxy
-pub struct TopConfig {
-    /// what database the client should connect to
+pub struct CliConfig {
+    /// path to the application config (optional).
+    #[argh(option)]
+    pub config: Option<String>,
+
+    /// if no config, what database the client should connect to. Defaults to dev db.
     #[argh(
         option,
         default = "\"mysql://root:dev_web3_proxy@127.0.0.1:13306/dev_web3_proxy\".to_string()"
@@ -28,6 +37,7 @@ enum SubCommand {
     DropMigrationLock(clear_migration_lock::DropMigrationLockSubCommand),
     // TODO: sub command to downgrade migrations?
     // TODO: sub command to add new api keys to an existing user?
+    // TODO: sub command to change a user's tier
 }
 
 #[tokio::main]
@@ -44,7 +54,20 @@ async fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> {
     // this probably won't matter for us in docker, but better safe than sorry
     fdlimit::raise_fd_limit();
 
-    let cli_config: TopConfig = argh::from_env();
+    let mut cli_config: CliConfig = argh::from_env();
+
+    let _top_config = if let Some(top_config_path) = cli_config.config.clone() {
+        let top_config: String = fs::read_to_string(top_config_path)?;
+        let top_config: TopConfig = toml::from_str(&top_config)?;
+
+        if let Some(top_config_db_url) = top_config.app.db_url.clone() {
+            cli_config.db_url = top_config_db_url;
+        }
+
+        Some(top_config)
+    } else {
+        None
+    };
 
     match cli_config.sub_command {
         SubCommand::CreateUser(x) => {