Web AI interface (WAII)

A simple user interface for interacting with AI technologies using Python and Flask

Project setup

These instructions walk you through getting the WAII project set up for development and testing. The general steps are installing some prerequisite software, cloning the project from the code repository, setting a few environment variables, and running the configuration installation. The code project uses Python Poetry to manage packages and the Python runtime environment.

Note: You need a Google Gemini API Key to be able to run the project, which you can obtain from the Google Gemini API page.

Install the prerequisites

The WAII project uses Python 3 and Python Poetry to manage packages and run the application. The following installation instructions are for a Linux host machine.

To install the required software:

1. Install Python 3 and the venv virtual environment package for Python.\

sudo apt update
sudo apt install git pip python3-venv

1. Install Python Poetry to manage dependencies and packaging for the project.\

curl -sSL https://install.python-poetry.org | python3 -

You can use Python Poetry to add more Python libraries if you extend the project. For more information about Python Poetry, see the Python Poetry documentation.

Clone and configure the project

Download the project code and use the Poetry installation command to download the required dependencies and configure the project. You need git source control software to retrieve the project source code.

To download and configure the project code:

1. Clone the git repository using the following command.\

git clone https://github.com/joefernandez/waii.git

1. Move to the waii project root directory.\

cd waii/

1. Run the Poetry install command to download dependencies and configure the project:\

poetry install

Set environment variables

Set a few environment variables that are required to allow the WAII code project to run, including a Google Gemini API Key. You add these variable settings to a .env file, which is read by the web application.

Caution: Treat your API Key like a password and protect it appropriately. Don't embed your key in publicly published code.

To set the environment variables:

1. Get a Google Gemini API Key and copy the key string.
2. Set the API Key as an environment variable for the project, by creating .env text file at this location in your clone of the project:\ <waii-project>/web_ai_interface_app/.env
3. After creating the .env text file, add the following settings and save it:

API_KEY=<YOUR_API_KEY_HERE>

Run and test the application

1. In a terminal window, navigate to the waii/web_ai_interface_app/ directory.\

cd web_ai_interface_app/

1. Run the application:\

poetry run flask run