TALLA-RAG

Table of Contents

1. About The Project
   • Built With
2. Because of Why ?
3. Usage
4. Getting Started
   • Prerequisites
   • Installation
5. Roadmap
6. Contributing
7. License
8. Contact
9. Acknowledgments

About The Project

Built with

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Because of Why ?

This project was built as a means to experiment myself with NoSql databases. Building a project that implemented Cassandra helped me understand what actually NoSql databases are meant by and particularly the distributed nature Cassandra is famous for. This project helped me get closer to my high end Engineering aspirations and get in touch with uv for dependency management.

Usage

TALLA-RAG is a local application that lets you chat with your documents using a local LLM backed by a Cassandra cluster for vector storage.

1. Upload a .txt or .pdf file via the sidebar.
2. Click Ingest to Cluster — chunks are embedded and stored across Cassandra nodes.
3. Ask questions in the chat — the app retrieves relevant chunks and answers using the LLM only.
4. Use Clear All Knowledge to wipe the vector store.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Docker & Docker Compose
• Ollama running locally with the following models pulled:

  ollama pull nomic-embed-text:v1.5
  ollama pull granite3.2:2b
  ollama pull <your_model_name> # in case you prefer another ollama model
  ollama pull <your_embedding_model> # or another embedding model...

  I recommend to check your hardware's capabilities to run opensource LLMs
• Python 3.11 or higher
• uv (Python package manager)

     pip install uv

Installation

1. Clone the repo

   git clone https://github.com/nnay29/cassandra-cluster-RAG.git
   cd cassandra-cluster-RAG

2. Copy and configure the environment file

   cp .env.example .env

   🚨 Edit .env and set DOCKER_HOST_IP to you machine's local IP address.

3. Start the Cassandra cluster

   docker-compose up -d

4. Create a virtual environment

   uv venv

5. Install Python dependencies

   uv sync

6. Run the Streamlit app

   streamlit run app.py

   The app will be available at http://localhost:8501

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Troubleshooting

If you experience issues during the setup process or while running the app, please check the following:

Issue Category	Specific Issue	Troubleshooting Solution
Ollama Connection Error	ConnectionError: Failed to connect to Ollama. Please check that Ollama is downloaded, running and accessible.	- Check whether ollama is installed and running - Also check if the model is pulled successfully
Cluster Offline Error in app UI	Cluster Offline (Cassandra cluster status)	Wait for the Cassandra containers to finish starting up. Check logs if issue persists
Cluster Offline Error in app UI	Could not connect to Cassandra at <IP_ADRESS>:9042 – timeout error	Make sure the env variable DOCKER_HOST_IP is set to your machine's local IP adress.
Cluster Offline Error in app UI	Cluster Offline + Could not connect to Cassandra at None: contact_points should not contain None (it can resolve to localhost)	Make sure the env variable DOCKER_HOST_IP is set to your machine's local IP adress.
Docker Compose Issues	Docker Compose not working / not installed (Windows)	Verify that you have Docker Desktop installed.
Docker Compose Issues	Docker Compose not running	Verify that Docker Compose is running. use docker compose ls command
Cassandra Containers Issues	Cassandra containers not running	Grab some coffee and wait for them to start up, if nothing happens after a while, check the logs.
Cassandra Containers Issues	Cassandra logs show errors	Check your Docker Compose logs for any error messages. Praise the lord too. I know what I mean...
Streamlit App Issues	Streamlit app not running	Verify that you activated the virtual environment and are in the right directory. Then use streamlit run app.py command
Streamlit App Issues	Streamlit logs show errors	Check your Streamlit logs for any error messages.

Open an issue on the GitHub repository if you continue to experience issues. We will try to help you resolve them.

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Roadmap

See the open issues for a full list of proposed features (and known issues).

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Contact

Project Link: https://github.com/nnay29/cassandra-cluster-RAG

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Acknowledgments

• Working on uv projects
• Taximan Talla officiel
• Top G
• Into the Unknown
• It’s a human thing. You wouldn’t understand.

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