diff --git a/lib/MetaCPAN/ES.pm b/lib/MetaCPAN/ES.pm
index 67b51f1..266cda3 100644
--- a/lib/MetaCPAN/ES.pm
+++ b/lib/MetaCPAN/ES.pm
@@ -10,17 +10,23 @@ use Search::Elasticsearch;
 use MetaCPAN::Ingest qw< config handle_error >;
 
 sub new ( $class, %args ) {
+    my $mode  = $args{mode} // "local";
     my $node  = $args{node};
     my $index = $args{index} // "cpan";
 
     my $config = config;
-    $node ||= $config->{es_node};
-    $node or die "Cannot create an ES instance without a node\n";
+    my $config_node =
+        $node ? $node :
+        $mode eq 'local' ? $config->{es_node} :
+        $mode eq 'test'  ? $config->{es_test_node} :
+        $mode eq 'prod'  ? $config->{es_production_node} :
+        undef;
+    $config_node or die "Cannot create an ES instance without a node\n";
 
     return bless {
         es => Search::Elasticsearch->new(
             client => '2_0::Direct',
-            nodes  => [$node],
+            nodes  => [$config_node],
         ),
         index => $index,
         ( $args{type} ? ( type => $args{type} ) : () ),
diff --git a/metacpan_ingest.conf b/metacpan_ingest.conf
index 1a3d4b7..81c8201 100644
--- a/metacpan_ingest.conf
+++ b/metacpan_ingest.conf
@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@ log4perl_file log4perl.conf
 
 es_node "elasticsearch:9200"
 
-# Dev: for testing -
+# for local data tests
+es_test_node "elasticsearch_test:9200"
+
 # to enable *reading* from profuction (check it's used in the code):
-es_test_node "https://fastapi.metacpan.org/v1"
+es_production_node "https://fastapi.metacpan.org/v1"