Course Materials RAG System

A Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system designed to answer questions about course materials using semantic search and AI-powered responses.

Overview

This application is a full-stack web application that enables users to query course materials and receive intelligent, context-aware responses. It uses ChromaDB for vector storage, Zhipu AI (GLM-4-Flash) for AI generation, and provides a web interface for interaction.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.13 or higher
• uv (Python package manager)
• A Zhipu AI API key (for GLM-4-Flash model)
• For Windows: Use Git Bash to run the application commands - Download Git for Windows

Installation

1. Install uv (if not already installed)

   curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

2. Install Python dependencies

   uv sync

3. Set up environment variables

   Create a .env file in the root directory:

   ZHIPU_API_KEY=your_zhipu_api_key_here

Running the Application

Quick Start

Use the provided shell script:

chmod +x run.sh
./run.sh

Manual Start

cd backend
uv run uvicorn app:app --reload --port 8000

The application will be available at:

• Web Interface: http://localhost:8000
• API Documentation: http://localhost:8000/docs

Development Tools

Code Quality

This project includes automated code quality tools:

# Format code
python scripts/format.py

# Run quality checks
python scripts/check_quality.py

# Or use the convenience scripts (Windows)
scripts\dev.bat format
scripts\dev.bat check

# Or use the convenience scripts (Linux/Mac)
bash scripts/dev.sh format
bash scripts/dev.sh check

Tools included:

• Black: Code formatter (line length: 100 chars)
• isort: Import statement organizer
• Flake8: Code style checker

For detailed usage, see docs/CODE_QUALITY.md.

Testing

Run the test suite:

cd backend
uv run pytest -v

Pre-commit Hooks (Optional)

Install pre-commit hooks for automatic quality checks:

# Install pre-commit framework
pip install pre-commit

# Install hooks
pre-commit install

# Now hooks will run automatically on each commit