diff --git a/bundles/modal/README.md b/bundles/modal/README.md
index 540e8cc..6251bdc 100644
--- a/bundles/modal/README.md
+++ b/bundles/modal/README.md
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ Deploy align-app as a serverless GPU application on Modal with scale-to-zero.
 ## Prerequisites
 
 1. Install Modal CLI:
+
    ```bash
    pip install modal
    modal setup  # authenticate with Modal
@@ -42,6 +43,12 @@ Edit `app.py` to adjust:
 - `timeout=30 * MINUTES` - Max request duration
 - `startup_timeout=5 * MINUTES` - Max time for container to start
 
+Experiment data is baked into the image and passed to `align-app` at startup:
+
+- `EXPERIMENTS` - Local path copied into the image at `/app/experiments`.
+  If it is a directory, it is copied directly.
+  If it is a `.zip`, it is unpacked into `/app` during the build.
+
 ## Costs
 
 - **L4 GPU**: ~$0.76/hour (billed per second)
diff --git a/bundles/modal/app.py b/bundles/modal/app.py
index b28d157..cb311c9 100644
--- a/bundles/modal/app.py
+++ b/bundles/modal/app.py
@@ -7,7 +7,8 @@
 PORT = 8080
 
 REPO_ROOT = Path(__file__).parent.parent.parent
-EXPERIMENTS_ZIP = os.environ.get("ALIGN_EXPERIMENTS_ZIP")
+EXPERIMENTS = os.environ.get("EXPERIMENTS")
+EXPERIMENTS_PATH = Path(EXPERIMENTS) if EXPERIMENTS else None
 
 app = modal.App("align-app")
 
@@ -36,25 +37,30 @@ def download_models():
     .workdir("/app")
 )
 
-if EXPERIMENTS_ZIP:
-    image = (
-        base_image.add_local_file(EXPERIMENTS_ZIP, "/app/experiments.zip", copy=True)
-        .run_commands(
-            "poetry config virtualenvs.create false && poetry install --only main",
-            "unzip experiments.zip -d /app && rm experiments.zip",
+image = base_image
+
+if EXPERIMENTS_PATH and EXPERIMENTS_PATH.exists():
+    if EXPERIMENTS_PATH.is_dir():
+        image = image.add_local_dir(
+            str(EXPERIMENTS_PATH), "/app/experiments", copy=True
         )
-        .run_function(
-            download_models,
-            secrets=[modal.Secret.from_name("huggingface")],
+    elif EXPERIMENTS_PATH.suffix.lower() == ".zip":
+        image = image.add_local_file(
+            str(EXPERIMENTS_PATH), "/app/experiments.zip", copy=True
         )
-    )
-else:
-    image = base_image.run_commands(
-        "poetry config virtualenvs.create false && poetry install --only main"
-    ).run_function(
-        download_models,
-        secrets=[modal.Secret.from_name("huggingface")],
-    )
+
+install_commands = [
+    "poetry config virtualenvs.create false && poetry install --only main",
+]
+
+if EXPERIMENTS_PATH and EXPERIMENTS_PATH.exists():
+    if EXPERIMENTS_PATH.is_file() and EXPERIMENTS_PATH.suffix.lower() == ".zip":
+        install_commands.append("unzip experiments.zip -d /app && rm experiments.zip")
+
+image = image.run_commands(*install_commands).run_function(
+    download_models,
+    secrets=[modal.Secret.from_name("huggingface")],
+)
 
 
 @app.function(