Alkiviades — User Guide¶

Getting Started¶

Quick Access (Guest)¶

Click Try Free (5 queries) to start instantly without an account. You get 5 queries before needing to sign in.

Enter your email and password, then click Login. For admin accounts, an additional Admin Panel appears in the sidebar.

Chat Interface¶

Queries Remaining: Shows remaining queries for guest users (turns red when ≤2)
Axes Configuration: Three sliders that modulate the AI's response:
Ηθική (Ethical): From "No restraint" to "Absolute adherence"
Οικονομική (Economic): From "Right / Capital" to "Left / Collective"
Κοινωνική (Social): From "Authoritarian" to "Libertarian" Each slider snaps to 7 discrete positions: far left, left, center-left, center, center-right, right, far right
Sessions: Past conversations listed with preview, click to load
Footer: Theme toggle (dark/light), logout, rebuild KB (admin)

Main Chat Area¶

Input box: Type your question or use / commands
Send button: or press Enter to send
Prompt suggestions: Click example prompts to get started

Message Display¶

User messages: Right-aligned, blue accent
AI responses: Left-aligned with source citations [source: filename.md]
Tool calls: Display web search queries and results inline
Errors: Show specific error details when something goes wrong

Commands¶

Type / in the chat input to see available commands:

Command	Description
`/rebuild`	Rebuild the knowledge base from source files (admin only)
`/help`	Show help information
`/about`	About Alkiviades

Admin Panel¶

Visible only to admin users in the sidebar:

Logs tab: View application logs with auto-refresh toggle (every 3 seconds)
Status tab: System diagnostics (Python version, API key status, KB size, memory config, environment variables)

Report Generation¶

Ask the AI to "generate a report on [topic]" — it runs a three-phase pipeline: 1. Analyzes the current session to identify themes and research gaps 2. Researches via RAG and Tavily web search 3. Synthesizes findings into a structured markdown report

Reports are saved to sessions/reports/ on the server.

CLI (Local Only)¶

For local development use:

cd backend
python run.py

CLI Commands: - /help — Show command reference - /exit or Ctrl+D — Quit - /rebuild — Rebuild knowledge base - /session — Manage sessions - /read <path> — Read a file - /report [topic] — Generate report - /monitor — Toggle monitoring sidebar - /stats — Show session statistics - /verbose — Toggle verbose mode - /axes — Show current axis values

Tips¶

Be specific: "Analyze the Greek healthcare system's challenges and propose reform messaging" works better than "healthcare"
Use axes: Adjust sliders before asking — the AI modulates responses accordingly
Follow up: The AI remembers conversation history within a session
Start new: Clear context by starting a new session
Save searches: Web search results are cached for future reference
Source verification: Every claim includes [source: ...] or [web search] citations