README 4.md

Lesson 3: Paul Graham Essays RAG Chatbot

A Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) chatbot that can discuss Paul Graham's essays with context awareness.

Requirements

• Python 3.11 (required)
• Pinecone account
• OpenAI API key

Installation

1. Create a Python 3.11 virtual environment:

   python3.11 -m venv venv311
   source venv311/bin/activate  # On macOS/Linux
   # or
   .\venv311\Scripts\activate  # On Windows

2. Install dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Set up environment variables in .env:

   OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_key
   PINECONE_API_KEY=your_pinecone_key
   PINECONE_ENV=your_environment
   PINECONE_INDEX=your_index_name

Usage

1. First, process the PDFs (place your PDFs in the pdfs/ directory):

   # To start fresh (recommended first time)
   python process_pdfs.py --reset
   
   # To add to existing index
   python process_pdfs.py

2. Run the chatbot:

   python pdf_agent_context.py

Project Structure

• pdf_agent_context.py - Main chatbot with context handling
• process_pdfs.py - PDF processing and vectorization
• pdfs/ - Directory for Paul Graham's essays (PDFs)
• requirements.txt - Project dependencies

Troubleshooting

• If you get import errors, make sure you're using Python 3.11
• If the chatbot can't find documents, run process_pdfs.py first
• If you get API errors, check your environment variables