diff --git a/spiffworkflow-backend/Dockerfile b/spiffworkflow-backend/Dockerfile
index fec358033..99cba25d2 100644
--- a/spiffworkflow-backend/Dockerfile
+++ b/spiffworkflow-backend/Dockerfile
@@ -20,10 +20,11 @@ FROM base AS deployment
 # gunicorn3 for web server
 # default-mysql-client for convenience accessing mysql docker container
 # vim ftw
+# jq because it is really useful, even for scenarios where people might have environment variables with json values they might need to use for configs. about 1MB.
 RUN apt-get update \
- && apt-get clean -y \
- && apt-get install -y -q git-core curl procps gunicorn3 default-mysql-client vim-tiny \
- && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
+  && apt-get clean -y \
+  && apt-get install -y -q git-core curl procps gunicorn3 default-mysql-client vim-tiny jq \
+  && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
 
 # keep pip up to date
 RUN pip install --upgrade pip
@@ -45,7 +46,7 @@ RUN useradd _gunicorn --no-create-home --user-group
 
 # default-libmysqlclient-dev for mysqlclient lib
 RUN apt-get update \
- && apt-get install -y -q gcc libssl-dev libpq-dev default-libmysqlclient-dev pkg-config libffi-dev
+  && apt-get install -y -q gcc libssl-dev libpq-dev default-libmysqlclient-dev pkg-config libffi-dev
 
 # poetry install takes a long time and can be cached if dependencies don't change,
 # so that's why we tolerate running it twice.