diff --git a/.vscode/settings.json b/.vscode/settings.json
deleted file mode 100644
index 9ddf6b2..0000000
--- a/.vscode/settings.json
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-{
-    "cmake.ignoreCMakeListsMissing": true
-}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/backend/deployment b/backend/deployment
index 4f0a028..904f16b 160000
--- a/backend/deployment
+++ b/backend/deployment
@@ -1 +1 @@
-Subproject commit 4f0a0289fcf8a7755d7dc1a76b443fe1233685ae
+Subproject commit 904f16bfc0624b6ab8569e0a70050aaa3bd64b3f
diff --git a/backend/src/constants.py b/backend/src/constants.py
index 303e7ed..208bfa6 100644
--- a/backend/src/constants.py
+++ b/backend/src/constants.py
@@ -21,11 +21,19 @@ debug = os.getenv('DEBUG', "false") == "true"
 if os.getenv('KUBERNETES_SERVICE_HOST', None) is not None:
     # in that case we want to log to stdout and also to loki
     from loki_logger_handler.loki_logger_handler import LokiLoggerHandler
+    loki_url = os.getenv('LOKI_URL')
+    if loki_url is None:
+        raise ValueError("LOKI_URL environment variable is not set")
+    
     loki_handler = LokiLoggerHandler(
-        url=os.getenv('LOKI_URL', 'http://loki:3100'),
-        labels={'app': 'anyway', 'env': 'production' if debug else 'staging'}
+        url = loki_url,
+        labels = {'app': 'anyway', 'environment': 'production' if debug else 'staging'}
     )
+    print(f"Logging to Loki at {loki_url} with {loki_handler.labels} and {debug=}")
     if debug:
+        # we need to silence the debug logs made by the loki handler
+        logging.getLogger('urllib3.connectionpool').setLevel(logging.INFO)
+
         logging.basicConfig(
             level=logging.DEBUG,
             handlers=[loki_handler, logging.StreamHandler()]