nlweb-setup

NLWeb Setup

Before writing code

Fetch live docs first:

1. Fetch https://github.com/nlweb-ai/NLWeb (README) for the current minimum Python version and required deps.
2. Fetch https://github.com/nlweb-ai/NLWeb/blob/main/docs/nlweb-hello-world.md for the canonical hello-world flow.
3. Fetch https://github.com/nlweb-ai/NLWeb/blob/main/docs/nlweb-cli.md for current nlweb CLI flags.
4. Web-search site:github.com/nlweb-ai/NLWeb docs/release_notes and read the most recent dated release note — config keys and required env vars change between releases.
5. Identify the default write_endpoint and verify which backends are enabled by default in config/config_retrieval.yaml on main.

Conceptual Architecture

What "setup" produces

A working NLWeb dev environment has four parts:

1. Cloned repo + Python virtualenv with requirements installed.
2. .env file with provider credentials (OpenAI/Azure OpenAI key + retrieval backend secrets).
3. Sample data ingested into the local vector store (Qdrant local by default).
4. A running aiohttp server on :8000 with /ask, /mcp, /sites reachable.

Three Default-Enabled Backends — Watch Out

NLWeb ships with three retrieval backends enabled by default in config_retrieval.yaml:

• qdrant_local (file-backed, fine for dev)
• nlweb_west (Azure AI Search — requires Azure credentials)
• shopify_mcp (queries Shopify's MCP endpoint, requires network)

For most local-dev cases, disable the latter two by setting enabled: false so you don't get connection errors at startup. The write_endpoint should point to qdrant_local for dev.

Setup Decision Checklist

• LLM provider — OpenAI, Azure OpenAI (default), Anthropic, Gemini, Ollama (offline), Snowflake Cortex?
• Embedding provider — must match between ingest and query; default is text-embedding-3-small on Azure OpenAI.
• Retrieval write endpoint — Qdrant local for dev, Azure AI Search / Snowflake Cortex / pgvector for prod.
• Data source — Schema.org JSON-LD on the site, RSS/Atom feed, sitemap.xml, or CSV?
• Mode — development (allows query-string config overrides) or production in config_webserver.yaml?
• OAuth — anonymous-only, or login-gated (GitHub/Google/Microsoft/Facebook)?

Project Layout (after setup)

NLWeb/                                 # cloned repo
├── AskAgent/python/
│   ├── app-aiohttp.py                 # main entry
│   ├── core/, methods/, webserver/    # core code
│   ├── llm_providers/, embedding_providers/, retrieval_providers/
│   └── data_loading/
├── config/
│   ├── config_llm.yaml
│   ├── config_embedding.yaml
│   ├── config_retrieval.yaml
│   ├── config_nlweb.yaml
│   ├── config_webserver.yaml
│   ├── config_oauth.yaml
│   ├── config_storage.yaml
│   ├── config_tools.yaml
│   ├── site_types.xml
│   └── prompts.xml
├── data/db/                           # qdrant_local file store
├── .env                               # YOUR credentials (gitignored)
└── docs/, scripts/, demo/, tests/

Setup Sequence

1. git clone https://github.com/nlweb-ai/NLWeb && cd NLWeb
2. nlweb init-python (or manual python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate && pip install -r requirements.txt)
3. nlweb init — interactive prompts walk through LLM + retrieval selection and write .env
4. Disable the unwanted default backends in config/config_retrieval.yaml (nlweb_west, shopify_mcp for local-only dev)
5. nlweb data-load <source> <site-name> — ingest sample content (use a small RSS feed for first run)
6. nlweb check — runs connectivity diagnostics; resolve any red flags
7. nlweb app — start the server, hit http://localhost:8000/
8. Test /ask?query=hello&site=<site-name>&streaming=false

.env Conventions

NLWeb expects credentials via env vars (never YAML). Common keys (verify live):

• OPENAI_API_KEY, AZURE_OPENAI_API_KEY, AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINT
• ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, GEMINI_API_KEY
• AZURE_SEARCH_ENDPOINT, AZURE_SEARCH_API_KEY
• QDRANT_API_KEY (only for remote Qdrant)
• SNOWFLAKE_USER, SNOWFLAKE_PASSWORD, SNOWFLAKE_ACCOUNT
• CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN, CLOUDFLARE_ACCOUNT_ID

Verification Targets

After setup, these should work:

• curl http://localhost:8000/sites → JSON list including your loaded site
• curl 'http://localhost:8000/ask?query=test&site=<your-site>&streaming=false' → JSON with results
• curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/mcp -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list"}' → ask, list_sites, optionally who

Common Setup Failures

• nlweb check fails on Azure: usually AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINT missing trailing slash or wrong deployment name.
• Embedding dim mismatch on retrieval: data was loaded with a different embedding provider than runtime config. Either re-ingest or change preferred_provider in config_embedding.yaml.
• Server starts but /ask returns empty: site name in the query doesn't match the site value used during ingest, or the sites: allowlist in config_nlweb.yaml excludes it.
• Slow first request: cold model loading + /who endpoint pinging nlwm.azurewebsites.net. Disable who_endpoint_enabled for offline dev.

Always re-verify against the latest hello-world doc — the exact env-var names and CLI flags change.