diff --git a/src/briar/api/constants.py b/src/briar/api/constants.py
index 94794a1ab75650b52e0a913f695160df0529d7ce..34dd83fbe76fc0c1e5125306cef1156304e9a251 100644
--- a/src/briar/api/constants.py
+++ b/src/briar/api/constants.py
@@ -6,13 +6,15 @@ from os.path import join
 from pathlib import Path
 from urllib.parse import urljoin
 
-_BRIAR_DIR = ".briar"
+_BRIAR_DIR_NAME = ".briar"
+_HOME = str(Path.home())
+_BRIAR_DIR = join(_HOME, _BRIAR_DIR_NAME)
 
 _HOST = "%s://localhost:7000"
 _VERSION_SUFFIX = "v1/"
 
-BRIAR_AUTH_TOKEN = join(Path.home(), _BRIAR_DIR, "auth_token")
-BRIAR_DB = join(Path.home(), _BRIAR_DIR, "db", "db.mv.db")
+BRIAR_AUTH_TOKEN = join(_BRIAR_DIR, "auth_token")
+BRIAR_DB = join(_BRIAR_DIR, "db", "db.mv.db")
 
 BASE_HTTP_URL = urljoin(_HOST % "http", _VERSION_SUFFIX)
 WEBSOCKET_URL = urljoin(_HOST % "ws", "%s/ws" % _VERSION_SUFFIX)