Machine Learning Writers Projects

This repository contains a series of hands-on projects inspired by my AI Engineering book.
Each project teaches practical skills for building reliable AI systems using large language models (LLMs) — completely locally, free of charge, and without needing internet access after initial setup.

Why these projects?

• Start simple → gradually increase in complexity
• Focus on real-world reliability: prompting, RAG, evaluation, memory, tools, monitoring
• 100% offline after setup (Ollama + open models)
• Excellent for beginners and intermediate learners who want to go beyond chat interfaces

Quick Start

1. Install Ollama → https://ollama.com
2. Pull a strong local model (recommended):ollama pull phi3.5, (or try tinyllama if your computer is slower)
3. Clone this repo: git clone https://github.com/FlashyIyke/Hands-On-AI-Engineering.git cd Hands-On-AI-Engineering
4. Go to any project folder and follow its README.md

Project List

• Project 1 – Simple Book Companion Chat
  Basic local chatbot answering questions about the book
  → [View folder] https://github.com/MachineLearningWriters/Hands-On-AI-Engineering/tree/main/projects/01-first-project

• Project 2 – Personal Knowledge Base Q&A (Basic Local RAG)
  Upload your own documents → ask questions → get grounded answers with sources
  → [View folder] https://github.com/MachineLearningWriters/Hands-On-AI-Engineering/tree/main/projects/01-first-project/projects/02-personal-rag

• Project 3 – Evaluated RAG with Offline Test Set
  RAG system + offline evaluation (Golden Dataset, LLM-as-a-judge, regression testing)
  → [View folder] https://github.com/MachineLearningWriters/Hands-On-AI-Engineering/tree/main/projects/01-first-project/projects/03-evaluated-rag/projects/03-evaluated-rag