docs/GETTING_STARTED.md

# Getting Started with GAIA Agent Development

This guide will help you get started with developing the GAIA Agent using your existing virtual environment.

## Prerequisites

- Python 3.8+
- Virtual environment (already in `.venv`)
- Hugging Face account (for deployment)

## Setup and Installation

1. **Activate your existing virtual environment**:
   ```bash
   source .venv/bin/activate
   ```

2. **Install the required dependencies**:
   ```bash
   pip install -r requirements.txt
   ```

3. **Install additional packages for the agent**:
   ```bash
   pip install gpt4all beautifulsoup4 pandas pillow python-dotenv searchapi
   ```

## Development Workflow

1. **Local Testing**:
   ```bash
   python app_local.py
   ```
   This will run a local version of the agent with a limited question set for testing.

2. **Running the full agent**:
   ```bash
   python app2.py
   ```
   Note: This requires Hugging Face authentication when running locally.

3. **Evaluating the agent**:
   ```bash
   python utilities/evaluate_local.py
   ```
   This will evaluate your agent against the common questions dataset.

## Project Structure

- `app2.py` - The main GAIA agent implementation
- `app_local.py` - Modified version for local testing without requiring login
- `devplan.md` - Development plan and architecture design
- `question_set/` - Contains question datasets for testing
- `utilities/` - Helper scripts for evaluating and testing
- `docs/` - Documentation about the API and submission process

## Next Steps

See the `NEXT_STEPS.md` file for a checklist of planned improvements.

## Troubleshooting

- **Authentication Issues**: For local testing, use `app_local.py` which doesn't require HF login
- **Missing Dependencies**: Make sure to install all requirements with `pip install -r requirements.txt`
- **File Not Found Errors**: Create a `dataset` directory for downloaded files