AskLit

AskLit is a "no-code" factory for publishing high-quality AI chatbots grounded in your own documents. It is designed to be deployed to Streamlit Community Cloud in minutes by anyone, regardless of technical expertise.

For a more robust deployment, you can deploy it to fly.io or another inexpensive hosting option.

🚀 Quick Start: The Scaffolder

The easiest way to get started is using the AskLit Project Scaffolder. This tool allows you to build your entire app—including your knowledge base and custom branding—right in your browser, then export it directly to GitHub.

1. Requirements

Before you start, make sure you have:

• GitHub Account: To host your code.
• Streamlit Community Cloud Account: To host your app (Connect it to your GitHub).
• LLM Provider Account: An API key from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or Groq.
  • Note: If you want to use a custom or local endpoint, AskLit supports any OpenAI-compatible API.

2. Using the Scaffolder

1. Launch the Scaffolder: Open the "Project Scaffolder" tab in the sidebar of this app.
2. Identity & Branding:
   • Set your app title and welcome message.
   • Custom Prompt: Define how your AI should act (e.g., "You are a friendly librarian...").
   • Custom Branding: Upload your own logo and favicon.
   • (Insert Screenshot: Scaffolder Step 1)
3. AI Configuration: Choose your model provider (e.g., OpenAI) and the model name (e.g., gpt-4o).
4. Knowledge Upload: Drag and drop your PDFs, Word docs, or Text files. The tool will chunk and embed them locally so you can see your knowledge base built in real-time.
   • (Insert Screenshot: Scaffolder Step 3)
5. Export & Deploy:
   • Connect GitHub: Click the button to authorize AskLit to create a repo for you.
   • Secrets Generator: Copy the pre-formatted TOML block from the "Deployment Secrets" box. Use the built-in Password Hasher if you need to set a password.
   • Push: Click "Create Repo & Push". This creates a private repository on your account with all your settings and documents pre-indexed.

---

🛠️ Configuration & Secrets

Once your repository is created, you need to tell Streamlit your API keys.

1. Streamlit Secrets Manager

In your Streamlit Cloud dashboard, go to Settings > Secrets and paste your configuration.

Basic Example:

OPENAI_API_KEY = "sk-..."
ADMIN_ROUTE = "manage" # Your secret admin URL parameter
ADMIN_PASSWORD_HASH = "..." # Generate this using the Hash Tool
"app.disable_admin" = "false" # Set to true to completely hide admin pages

2. Custom OpenAI Endpoints

If you are using a provider like OpenRouter, Together.ai, or a local LM Studio instance, you can set a custom base URL:

OPENAI_API_KEY = "your-provider-key"
OPENAI_BASE_URL = "https://openrouter.ai/api/v1"
"model.name" = "anthropic/claude-3-opus" # Use the provider's specific model string

3. Branding Overrides

You can override any branding element in secrets without redeploying:

"branding.logo_url" = "https://example.com/logo.png"
"branding.footer_text" = "Custom Footer"
"branding.hide_asklit_badge" = "false"

---

🏗️ Advanced: Local Development

If you are a developer and want to run or modify AskLit locally:

1. Setup Environment:

   pip install -r requirements.txt
   cp .streamlit/secrets.toml.example .streamlit/secrets.toml

2. Run:

   streamlit run app.py

3. Admin Access: Visit http://localhost:8501/?manage (matching your ADMIN_ROUTE).

📚 Repository Layout

app.py                         Navigation entrypoint
scaffold.py                    The "Project Scaffolder" wizard
chat_ui.py                     The public chat interface
admin/                         Management tools (Settings, Knowledge Base, Logs)
asklit/                        Core logic (RAG, LLM, Ingestion)
config/defaults.toml           Default settings (overridden by DB and Secrets)
data/                          Your pre-indexed knowledge base (SQLite + Chroma)

⚖️ License & Attribution

AskLit is a project of the Suffolk University Law School LIT Lab.

Made with AskLit