Project Digit: Phase 1 Documentation

Core Engine & CLI Prototyping. Establishing the foundational inference bridge between local hardware and the Qwen2.5-Coder:1.5b LLM via the command line.

Section 1: Tasklist

Section 2: System Preparation

Setting up the local environment and inference engine.

1. Install the Ollama backend by following instructions at ollama.com.
2. Open your terminal and pull the designated model:

user@elastic:~$ ollama pull qwen2.5-coder:1.5b

3. Install the necessary Python packages for the frontend UI:

user@elastic:~$ pip install rich ollama

Section 3: CLI Implementation

The core Python script that acts as the bridge between your terminal and the local model.

1. Create a new file named digit in a directory included in your system's PATH (e.g., ~/.local/bin/).
2. Add the following code to the file. Ensure you use the exact formatting provided.

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import sys
import argparse
from rich.console import Console
from rich.markdown import Markdown
from rich.live import Live
import ollama

def main():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog="digit")
    parser.add_argument("prompt", nargs="+")
    args = parser.parse_args()
    
    prompt_text = " ".join(args.prompt)
    
    system_prompt = "You are Digit, a minimalist code librarian and coding assistant. Only explain code, provide examples, or reference documentation. Keep answers concise, highly technical, and accurate. Format output in Markdown."
    
    console = Console()
    
    try:
        response = ollama.chat(
            model="qwen2.5-coder:1.5b",
            messages=[
                {"role": "system", "content": system_prompt},
                {"role": "user", "content": prompt_text}
            ],
            stream=True
        )
        
        full_response = ""
        with Live(console=console, refresh_per_second=10) as live:
            for chunk in response:
                full_response += chunk['message']['content']
                live.update(Markdown(full_response))
                
    except Exception as e:
        console.print(f"Error: {e}")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()
              

Section 4: Execution & Testing

Finalizing the installation and testing the CLI.

1. Make the script executable:

user@elastic:~$ chmod +x ~/.local/bin/digit

2. Test the script with a standard query to verify the streaming output:

user@elastic:~$ digit explain time.h and when i should use it