diff --git a/amanuensis/cli/admin.py b/amanuensis/cli/admin.py
index c7e7f30..dfc92d0 100644
--- a/amanuensis/cli/admin.py
+++ b/amanuensis/cli/admin.py
@@ -28,9 +28,8 @@ def command_init_db(args) -> int:
         args.parser.error(f"{args.path} already exists and --force was not specified")
 
     # Initialize the database
-    db_uri = f"sqlite:///{os.path.abspath(args.path)}"
-    LOG.info(f"Creating database at {db_uri}")
-    db = DbContext(db_uri, debug=args.verbose)
+    LOG.info(f"Creating database at {args.path}")
+    db = DbContext(path=args.path, echo=args.verbose)
     db.create_all()
 
     LOG.info("Done")
diff --git a/amanuensis/db/database.py b/amanuensis/db/database.py
index 0fb68f3..90eaa49 100644
--- a/amanuensis/db/database.py
+++ b/amanuensis/db/database.py
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 """
 Database connection setup
 """
+import os
+
 from sqlalchemy import create_engine, MetaData, event
 from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base
 from sqlalchemy.orm import scoped_session, sessionmaker
@@ -27,9 +29,20 @@ ModelBase = declarative_base(metadata=metadata)
 
 
 class DbContext:
-    def __init__(self, db_uri, debug=False):
+    """Class encapsulating connections to the database."""
+
+    def __init__(self, path=None, uri=None, echo=False):
+        """
+        Create a database context.
+        Exactly one of `path` and `uri` should be specified.
+        """
+
+        if path and uri:
+            raise ValueError("Only one of path and uri may be specified")
+        db_uri = uri if uri else f"sqlite:///{os.path.abspath(path)}"
+
         # Create an engine and enable foreign key constraints in sqlite
-        self.engine = create_engine(db_uri, echo=debug)
+        self.engine = create_engine(db_uri, echo=echo)
 
         @event.listens_for(self.engine, "connect")
         def set_sqlite_pragma(dbapi_connection, connection_record):
diff --git a/amanuensis/server/__init__.py b/amanuensis/server/__init__.py
index e144471..eeb6a29 100644
--- a/amanuensis/server/__init__.py
+++ b/amanuensis/server/__init__.py
@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ def get_app(
 
     # Create the database context, if one wasn't already given
     if db is None:
-        db = DbContext(app.config["DATABASE_URI"])
+        db = DbContext(uri=app.config["DATABASE_URI"])
 
     # Make the database connection available to requests via g
     def db_setup():
diff --git a/tests/conftest.py b/tests/conftest.py
index 6328261..b5bc8d3 100644
--- a/tests/conftest.py
+++ b/tests/conftest.py
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ from amanuensis.server import get_app
 @pytest.fixture
 def db() -> DbContext:
     """Provides an initialized database in memory."""
-    db = DbContext("sqlite:///:memory:", debug=False)
+    db = DbContext(uri="sqlite:///:memory:", echo=False)
     db.create_all()
     return db