Prerequisites

To set up the Slothub microservice architecture locally, you will need the following tools and accounts:

Java Development Kit (JDK) 17: Required to build and run the Spring Boot backend service.
Node.js (v18 or higher) and npm: Necessary for running the React/TypeScript/Vite frontend.
Python (3.10 to 3.12): Used for both the FastAPI AI Service (3.12 recommended) and the LangGraph Agent-Core (3.10 recommended).
Docker & Docker Compose: The easiest way to run the shared PostgreSQL database with the pgvector extension locally.
Git: To clone and manage the codebase.

Because Slothub’s AI components leverage cloud language models and storage options, you need:

AWS Account:
- An S3 Bucket (e.g., in ap-southeast-1) for storing uploaded PDF files and generated contents.
- Access keys (AWS_ACCESS_KEY, AWS_SECRET_KEY) with permissions to read/write to S3 and invoke AWS Bedrock operations.
OpenAI API Key: Required by the FastAPI service for embeddings and automated content generation tasks.

Visual Studio Code or IntelliJ IDEA: For backend and frontend development.
pgAdmin or DBeaver: For visualizing database records, included in the docker-compose template.

Once you have these tools installed and API keys generated, you’re ready to proceed to the project structure and deployment steps.