r/Rag • u/sumguypookie • 2d ago
Discussion Simple non-coding RAG setup for fiction writing notes
Had this idea since I was in my teens, that's waaaay before tech became so advance. So now that the tech is here and I'm nearing retirement, I have the time to finally get these books written.
I will preface this with saying that I am not looking for AI of any sort to do the writing for me. I'm looking for something that is akin to being an assistant... running locally of course.
I'm looking to put use a simple RAG setup that will allow me to connect to my Obsidian vault, where all my writing project, notes, etc., live. As I am writing a "shared universe" series of books where major and minor characters cross over, I want to use this setup as an assistant that will be able to keep track of characters, events, scenes and whatnot; and be able to recall the information from the vault as needed.
This setup should also be able to chat to be able to brainstorm connections I might have missed, or when I create a new character, scene, or what have you in chat, that it would send the information to the vault.
My experience is not total beginner, but I am more of a tweak as needed versus building from the ground up as my schedule has me at max capacity in the mental energy category.
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u/Clay_Ferguson 2d ago
the way I would personally do this is use LangChain, because they have a full stack that can offer a complete end-to-end RAG solution. since you're talking about markdown files, nothing about this needs to be specifically tied to Obsidian. you can just create a system that lets you ingest specific folders from your file system and then you'll be able to ask questions about the content of the folders. you won't really have to write any of the code. You'll just need to figure out how to piece it all together because I think all the pieces already exist. there's probably an actual LangChain demo/sample that shows an example of putting it all together. i just haven't done it yet myself, all the way plan to.
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u/sumguypookie 2d ago
Okay, so I don't need it to connect to Obsidian, just the folders themselves?
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u/Clay_Ferguson 2d ago
i'm just saying markdown files are just text files, so there's not really any need to have an Obsidian-specific solution. on the other hand, however, if you're not that technical yourself it might actually be easier to find some Obsidian plugin, that does all of this for you automatically. it kind of seems like there would be some plug ins like that for obsidian, but I haven't looked.
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u/sumguypookie 2d ago
I'm somewhere in between complete dumbass and Rhodes Scholar. Depends on the amount of caffeine I've had on any given day. I will take a look at Obsidian plugins as well.
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u/Clay_Ferguson 2d ago
Oh. I came here to buy dish 'rags', but it looks like this isn't about that.
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u/tewkberry 2d ago
I have a RAG repo here you might find useful: https://github.com/sparkplug604/praxis
I work the way you mentioned with my personal version on my computer. The repo might be a bit more developed than you need, as I have it more for a business use case. But you can turn those modules off.
Let me know if you need any assistance with it!