AI Chatbot using Flask

This project is a simple AI chatbot built with Flask, designed to run locally for development and testing purposes. It demonstrates the implementation of a conversational AI model in a web application.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have met the following requirements:

• 3.6 or higher installed on your machine
• (Python package installer)

Installation

Follow these steps to get your development environment running:

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/yourprojectname.git
cd yourprojectname

2. Set up a Python virtual environment

This step is optional but highly recommended to keep dependencies required by this project separate from your global Python environment.

python -m venv venv

• On Windows, activate the virtual environment with:

venv\Scripts\activate

• On Unix or MacOS, use:

source venv/bin/activate

3. Install required packages

Install all the dependencies listed in requirements.txt file.

pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Environment Variables

(Optional) If your application requires environment variables, create a .env file in the root directory and populate it with necessary key-value pairs.

Running the Application

To run the application, use the following command from the root directory:

flask run

This will start a local web server. By default, Flask applications run on http://127.0.0.1:5000/ (localhost port 5000). Open your web browser and navigate to this address to interact with the AI chatbot.

Project Structure

• app.py - Entry point of the Flask application.
• /templates - Contains HTML files.
• /static - Contains static files like CSS, JavaScript, and images.
• /venv - Virtual environment directory (should not be committed to version control).

Ignoring Files

Certain directories and files such as venv, __pycache__, and others containing sensitive information or that are specific to your development environment should not be committed to Git. Make sure your .gitignore file includes:

venv/
__pycache__/
.env

Contributing

Contributions to this project are welcome. Please fork the repository and submit a pull request with your features or fixes.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details.