diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 50b3c18..0d5f784 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -2,3 +2,6 @@
 
 .vscode
 *.ipynb
+
+/spark-warehouse
+/artifacts
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 4ab032f..ee6a368 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -46,12 +46,17 @@ cargo build
 
 With local spark:
 
-1. [Download Spark distribution](https://spark.apache.org/downloads.html) (3.4.0+), unzip the package.
+1. [Download Spark distribution](https://spark.apache.org/downloads.html) (3.5.1 recommended), unzip the package.
+
+2. Set your `SPARK_HOME` environment variable to the location where spark was extracted to,
 
 2. Start the Spark Connect server with the following command (make sure to use a package version that matches your Spark distribution):
 
-```
-sbin/start-connect-server.sh --packages org.apache.spark:spark-connect_2.12:3.4.0
+```bash
+$ $SPARK_HOME/sbin/start-connect-server.sh --packages "org.apache.spark:spark-connect_2.12:3.5.1,io.delta:delta-spark_2.12:3.0.0" \
+      --conf "spark.driver.extraJavaOptions=-Divy.cache.dir=/tmp -Divy.home=/tmp" \
+      --conf "spark.sql.extensions=io.delta.sql.DeltaSparkSessionExtension" \
+      --conf "spark.sql.catalog.spark_catalog=org.apache.spark.sql.delta.catalog.DeltaCatalog"
 ```
 
 With docker:
@@ -59,7 +64,7 @@ With docker:
 1. Start the Spark Connect server by leveraging the created `docker-compose.yml` in this repo. This will start a Spark Connect Server running on port 15002
 
 ```bash
-docker compose up --build -d
+$ docker compose up --build -d
 ```
 
 **Step 5**: Run an example from the repo under [/examples](https://github.com/sjrusso8/spark-connect-rs/tree/main/examples/README.md)
diff --git a/core/src/dataframe.rs b/core/src/dataframe.rs
index 3c01006..393349b 100644
--- a/core/src/dataframe.rs
+++ b/core/src/dataframe.rs
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ use polars_arrow;
 /// A `DataFrame` is created from a `spark.sql()` statement
 ///
 /// ```rust
-/// let df = spark.sql("SELECT * FROM json.`/datasets/employees.json`").await?;
+/// let df = spark.sql("SELECT * FROM json.`/opt/spark/work-dir/datasets/employees.json`").await?;
 /// ```
 ///
 /// ## read & readStream
@@ -1745,7 +1745,7 @@ mod tests {
     async fn test_df_input_files() -> Result<(), SparkError> {
         let spark = setup().await;
 
-        let path = ["/datasets/people.csv"];
+        let path = ["/opt/spark/work-dir/datasets/people.csv"];
 
         let df = spark
             .read()
diff --git a/core/src/functions/mod.rs b/core/src/functions/mod.rs
index cb0c61b..60ffa74 100644
--- a/core/src/functions/mod.rs
+++ b/core/src/functions/mod.rs
@@ -643,7 +643,7 @@ mod tests {
     async fn test_func_input_file() -> Result<(), SparkError> {
         let spark = setup().await;
 
-        let path = ["/datasets/people.csv"];
+        let path = ["/opt/spark/work-dir/datasets/people.csv"];
 
         let df = spark
             .read()
@@ -654,7 +654,9 @@ mod tests {
 
         let res = df.select(input_file_name()).head(None).await?;
 
-        let a: ArrayRef = Arc::new(StringArray::from(vec!["file:///datasets/people.csv"]));
+        let a: ArrayRef = Arc::new(StringArray::from(vec![
+            "file:///opt/spark/work-dir/datasets/people.csv",
+        ]));
 
         let expected = RecordBatch::try_from_iter(vec![("input_file_name()", a)])?;
 
diff --git a/core/src/readwriter.rs b/core/src/readwriter.rs
index b72b194..2b5abdb 100644
--- a/core/src/readwriter.rs
+++ b/core/src/readwriter.rs
@@ -462,7 +462,7 @@ mod tests {
     async fn test_dataframe_read() -> Result<(), SparkError> {
         let spark = setup().await;
 
-        let path = ["/datasets/people.csv"];
+        let path = ["/opt/spark/work-dir/datasets/people.csv"];
 
         let df = spark
             .read()
@@ -481,7 +481,7 @@ mod tests {
     async fn test_dataframe_read_schema() -> Result<(), SparkError> {
         let spark = setup().await;
 
-        let path = ["/datasets/people.json"];
+        let path = ["/opt/spark/work-dir/datasets/people.csv"];
 
         let schema = StructType::new(vec![
             StructField {
diff --git a/docker-compose.yml b/docker-compose.yml
index b525beb..a56d1e3 100644
--- a/docker-compose.yml
+++ b/docker-compose.yml
@@ -14,4 +14,4 @@ services:
       - "4040:4040"
       - "15002:15002"
     volumes:
-      - ./datasets:/datasets
+      - ./datasets:/opt/spark/work-dir/datasets
diff --git a/examples/README.md b/examples/README.md
index 1ac2943..a1837d8 100644
--- a/examples/README.md
+++ b/examples/README.md
@@ -47,6 +47,16 @@ $ cargo run --bin readstream
 Read a file into a dataframe, save the result as a deltalake table, and append a new record to the table.
 
 **Prerequisite** the spark cluster must be started with the deltalake package. The `docker-compose.yml` provided in the repo has deltalake pre-installed.
+Or if you are running a spark connect server location, run the below scripts first
+
+If you are running a local spark connect server. The Delta Lake jars need to be added onto the server before it starts.
+
+```bash
+$ $SPARK_HOME/sbin/start-connect-server.sh --packages "org.apache.spark:spark-connect_2.12:3.5.1,io.delta:delta-spark_2.12:3.0.0" \
+      --conf "spark.driver.extraJavaOptions=-Divy.cache.dir=/tmp -Divy.home=/tmp" \
+      --conf "spark.sql.extensions=io.delta.sql.DeltaSparkSessionExtension" \
+      --conf "spark.sql.catalog.spark_catalog=org.apache.spark.sql.delta.catalog.DeltaCatalog"
+```
 
 ```bash
 $ cargo run --bin deltalake
diff --git a/examples/src/deltalake.rs b/examples/src/deltalake.rs
index fea77d3..c7526ec 100644
--- a/examples/src/deltalake.rs
+++ b/examples/src/deltalake.rs
@@ -17,8 +17,8 @@ async fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
         .await?;
 
     // path might vary based on where you started your spark cluster
-    // the `/examples` folder of spark contains dummy data
-    let paths = ["/datasets/people.csv"];
+    // the `/datasets/` folder of spark contains dummy data
+    let paths = ["./datasets/people.csv"];
 
     // Load a CSV file from the spark server
     let df = spark
diff --git a/examples/src/reader.rs b/examples/src/reader.rs
index d5e699e..42e4afb 100644
--- a/examples/src/reader.rs
+++ b/examples/src/reader.rs
@@ -11,14 +11,14 @@ use spark_connect_rs::types::DataType;
 async fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
     let spark: SparkSession = SparkSessionBuilder::default().build().await?;
 
-    let path = ["/datasets/people.csv"];
+    let path = "./datasets/people.csv";
 
     let df = spark
         .read()
         .format("csv")
         .option("header", "True")
         .option("delimiter", ";")
-        .load(path)?;
+        .load([path])?;
 
     // select columns and perform data manipulations
     let df = df