🚀 Installation and First configuration

Requirements

To run the Cheshire Cat, you need to have Docker (instructions) and docker compose (instructions) already installed on your system.

The Cat is not a LLM, it uses a LLM. Hence, when you run the Cat for the first time, you need to configure the LLM and the embedder.
Most people use ChatGPT, it's quite cheap and powerful enough. We will do the same during the next steps.

To use ChatGPT, you need an API key. You can request one on the provider's website: - visit your OpenAI API Keys page;
- create an API key with + Create new secret key and copy it

Setup

Create a folder on your machine, and inside it create a file named compose.yml. Copy/paste the following inside:

version: '3.7'

services:

  cheshire-cat-core:
    image: ghcr.io/cheshire-cat-ai/core:latest
    container_name: cheshire_cat_core
    ports:
      - ${CORE_PORT:-1865}:80
    environment:
      - PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1
      - WATCHFILES_FORCE_POLLING=true
    volumes:
      - ./static:/app/cat/static
      - ./plugins:/app/cat/plugins
      - ./data:/app/cat/data

Starting the Cat

Open a terminal inside the same folder and run:

docker compose up

The first time you run the docker compose up command, it will take several minutes to pull the Docker Cat image depending on network connection.

You will see three new folders:

data: where long term memory and settings are stored
plugins: where you can install and develop plugins
static: folder to serve static files from

Useful commands

To start the container in background mode, use the --detach or -d flag to the command, as:

docker compose up -d

In this way the terminal won't be locked by the docker compose execution.

To check the logs do the following:

docker compose logs -f

First configuration of the LLM

Open the Admin Portal in your browser at localhost:1865/admin
Configure the LLM in the Settings tab and paste your API key (video)

Next step

In the next step, you will learn how to play with the Cat.