Quickstart

Quickstart

Requirements

Node.js 20 or later. Nothing else.

Two minutes

git clone https://github.com/etemigarba/rag-pipeline-course.git
cd rag-pipeline-course
npm install
npm run index:seed
npm run serve

Open http://localhost:3001 and ask "What is the pass mark for CSC 508?"

No key was needed: EMBED_PROVIDER and LLM_PROVIDER both default to fake, an offline embedder and an offline extractive answerer.

From the command line

npm run query -- "How much is full-time tuition for the 2026 session?"
npm run query -- --hits "pass mark CSC 508"     # retrieval only

--hits is the first thing to reach for when an answer looks wrong. The fault is upstream of the prompt more often than not.

Check everything works

npm run verify     # lint, format, 128 tests, smoke test, evaluation

Index your own documents

Drop .txt, .md or .html files into a folder and:

npm run index -- ./my-documents
npm run serve

Go live

EMBED_PROVIDER=openai OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...             \
LLM_PROVIDER=claude ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...        \
LLM_MODEL=<your-model>                                  \
npm run index -- --full && npm run serve

--full is required: changing the embedding model invalidates every stored vector.