diff --git a/apps/litellm/base/deployment.yaml b/apps/litellm/base/deployment.yaml
index e0c69d4..b3bd832 100644
--- a/apps/litellm/base/deployment.yaml
+++ b/apps/litellm/base/deployment.yaml
@@ -42,6 +42,19 @@ spec:
                   key: LITELLM_MASTER_KEY
             - name: LITELLM_LOG_LEVEL
               value: "DEBUG"
+            # Present on the live (drifted) deployment but missing from this
+            # file — LiteLLM's proxy tries to reach Postgres for spend
+            # tracking/virtual-key storage regardless of whether
+            # general_settings.database_url is set in config.yaml, and
+            # fails startup entirely if DATABASE_URL is unset (discovered
+            # when adopting this file caused a crash loop: the litellm-db-
+            # credentials secret already existed, this file just never
+            # referenced it).
+            - name: DATABASE_URL
+              valueFrom:
+                secretKeyRef:
+                  name: litellm-db-credentials
+                  key: DATABASE_URL
           volumeMounts:
             - name: config
               mountPath: /app/config.yaml