diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 06879c4..88f2c75 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -39,6 +39,8 @@ build/
 
 ### Other Stuff ###
 **/resources/config*.json
+!**/resources/config.example.json
+!**/resources/config.schema.json
 
 ### why would this not be here already ###
-logs/
\ No newline at end of file
+/logs/
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/src/main/java/net/hypr/doki/Config.java b/src/main/java/net/hypr/doki/Config.java
index dd9e7af..da1e92d 100644
--- a/src/main/java/net/hypr/doki/Config.java
+++ b/src/main/java/net/hypr/doki/Config.java
@@ -19,12 +19,11 @@ public class Config {
      * @throws IOException if the config JSON could not be read
      */
     public static Config readConfig() throws IOException {
-        System.out.println(Path.of("config.json"));
         try (InputStream in=Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("config.json")) {
             assert in != null;
             Reader reader = new InputStreamReader(in, StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
             return new Gson().fromJson(reader, Config.class);
-        } catch (IOException e) {
+        } catch (IOException | NullPointerException e) {
             throw new IOException("""
 					config.json was not found in the root folder (of the project), did you forget to put it ?
 					Example structure:
diff --git a/src/main/resources/config.schema.json b/src/main/resources/config.schema.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8649af9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/main/resources/config.schema.json
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+
+
+{
+  "$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-04/schema#",
+  "type": "object",
+  "properties": {
+    "token": {
+      "type": "string"
+    },
+    "prefix": {
+      "type": "string"
+    },
+    "mariadb": {
+      "type": "object",
+      "properties": {
+        "host": {
+          "type": "string"
+        },
+        "user": {
+          "type": "string"
+        },
+        "password": {
+          "type": "string"
+        },
+        "database": {
+          "type": "string"
+        }
+      },
+      "required": [
+        "host",
+        "user",
+        "password",
+        "database"
+      ]
+    }
+  },
+  "required": [
+    "token",
+    "prefix",
+    "mariadb"
+  ]
+}
\ No newline at end of file