diff --git a/DEVELOPMENT.md b/DEVELOPMENT.md
index cbaf7beab..a5d36df0a 100644
--- a/DEVELOPMENT.md
+++ b/DEVELOPMENT.md
@@ -90,6 +90,18 @@ development command line options.
 - `DANDI_TESTS_NO_VCR` — When set, the use of vcrpy to playback captured HTTP
   requests during testing will be disabled
 
+- `DANDI_TESTS_INSTANCE_NAME` -- Sets the instance name for the dandi-archive instance used for
+  testing. Defaults to `"DANDI"`. Useful for testing dandi-cli against a dandi-archive instance with
+  a particular vendor information.
+
+- `DANDI_TESTS_INSTANCE_IDENTIFIER` -- Sets the instance identifier (RRID) for the dandi-archive
+  instance used for testing. Defaults to `"RRID:ABC_123456"`. Useful for testing dandi-cli against
+  a dandi-archive instance with a particular vendor information.
+
+- `DANDI_TESTS_DOI_PREFIX` -- Sets the DOI API prefix for the dandi-archive instance used for
+  testing. Defaults to `"10.80507"`. Useful for testing dandi-cli against a dandi-archive instance
+  with a particular vendor information.
+
 - `DANDI_DEVEL_INSTRUMENT_REQUESTS_SUPERLEN` -- When set, the `upload()`
   function will patch `requests` to log the results of calls to
   `requests.utils.super_len()`
diff --git a/dandi/tests/data/dandiarchive-docker/docker-compose.yml b/dandi/tests/data/dandiarchive-docker/docker-compose.yml
index 1ce60fbb9..71463db20 100644
--- a/dandi/tests/data/dandiarchive-docker/docker-compose.yml
+++ b/dandi/tests/data/dandiarchive-docker/docker-compose.yml
@@ -36,9 +36,9 @@ services:
       DJANGO_DANDI_WEB_APP_URL: http://localhost:8085
       DJANGO_DANDI_API_URL: http://localhost:8000
       DJANGO_DANDI_JUPYTERHUB_URL: https://hub.dandiarchive.org
-      DJANGO_DANDI_INSTANCE_NAME: DANDI
-      DJANGO_DANDI_INSTANCE_IDENTIFIER: RRID:ABC_123456
-      DJANGO_DANDI_DOI_API_PREFIX: "10.80507"
+      DJANGO_DANDI_INSTANCE_NAME: ${DANDI_TESTS_INSTANCE_NAME:-DANDI}
+      DJANGO_DANDI_INSTANCE_IDENTIFIER: ${DANDI_TESTS_INSTANCE_IDENTIFIER:-RRID:ABC_123456}
+      DJANGO_DANDI_DOI_API_PREFIX: ${DANDI_TESTS_DOI_PREFIX:-10.80507}
     ports:
       - "127.0.0.1:8000:8000"