diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 1aad2c9..e6a8ae7 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -7,6 +7,10 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 
 ## vX.X.X
 
+### Added
+
+- add optional output path argument to parser. ![\#26](https://github.com/mllam/mllam-data-prep/pull/26)
+
 ### Changed
 
 - fix bug by making dependency `distributed` optional ![\#27](https://github.com/mllam/mllam-data-prep/pull/27)
diff --git a/mllam_data_prep/__main__.py b/mllam_data_prep/__main__.py
index 12d4766..2b31f84 100644
--- a/mllam_data_prep/__main__.py
+++ b/mllam_data_prep/__main__.py
@@ -21,6 +21,9 @@
         formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter
     )
     parser.add_argument("config", help="Path to the config file", type=Path)
+    parser.add_argument(
+        "-o", "--output", help="Path to the output zarr file", type=Path, default=None
+    )
     parser.add_argument(
         "--show-progress", help="Show progress bar", action="store_true"
     )
@@ -74,4 +77,4 @@
         # print the dashboard link
         logger.info(f"Dashboard link: {cluster.dashboard_link}")
 
-    create_dataset_zarr(fp_config=args.config)
+    create_dataset_zarr(fp_config=args.config, fp_zarr=args.output)