Getting Started

Get your development environment ready in minutes.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have:

Python 3.11+ installed
Conda (recommended) or virtualenv
Git for cloning the repository
API keys for OpenAI and Tavily

Installation

Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/SOTAAZlab/LLM-Agent-Cookbook.git
cd LLM-Agent-Cookbook

Create Environment

⚠️

Important: This course uses the sotaaz conda environment. Please follow these exact commands.

conda create -n sotaaz python=3.11 -y
conda activate sotaaz

Install Dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

Configure API Keys

cp .env.example .env

Edit the .env file and add your API keys:

OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-your-api-key-here
TAVILY_API_KEY=tvly-your-api-key-here

Register Jupyter Kernel

python -m ipykernel install --user --name sotaaz --display-name "Python (sotaaz)"

Getting API Keys

Go to OpenAI Platform (opens in a new tab)
Sign in or create an account
Click "Create new secret key"
Copy the key to your .env file

Verify Installation

Run this command to verify everything is set up correctly:

conda activate sotaaz
python -c "from openai import OpenAI; print('✅ OpenAI SDK ready')"
python -c "from tavily import TavilyClient; print('✅ Tavily SDK ready')"

Start Your First Notebook

jupyter notebook week1_foundations/01_react_scratch_en.ipynb

You're all set! Head over to Week 1 to start learning.

Introduction Overview