Getting Started

Learn how to get started with the BoxLang AI module, including installation, basic usage, and key features.

Welcome to BoxLang AI! This section covers everything you need to get up and running with AI-powered features in your BoxLang applications.

📚 In This Section

📦 Installation

Quick guide to installing the BoxLang AI module.

What you'll learn:

• Installing via BoxLang Module Installer, CommandBox, or package dependencies

• Basic configuration setup

• Running Ollama with Docker for production deployments

• Verification and next steps

Time: 5 minutes

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🧩 Provider Setup & Configuration

Comprehensive guide to configuring all supported AI providers.

What you'll learn:

• Provider comparison and recommendations

• Getting API keys for 12+ cloud providers (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, etc.)

• Setting up Ollama for local AI (no API costs!)

• Configuration best practices

• Environment variables and security

• Multiple provider management

• Troubleshooting provider issues

Time: 10-15 minutes

• 🤖 Multi-Provider Support - OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Ollama, Grok, Groq, DeepSeek, Perplexity, and more

• 💬 Simple Chat Interface - Start with one-line AI conversations

• 🔄 Composable Pipelines - Build complex AI workflows by chaining operations

• 🧠 Intelligent Agents - Create autonomous agents with memory and tools

• 📊 Structured Output - Extract data into classes, structs, or arrays

• 🎙️ Multimodal Content - Process images, audio, video, and documents

• 🛠️ Real-Time Tools - Enable AI to call functions and APIs

• 💭 Memory Systems - Maintain conversation context across interactions

• 📡 Streaming Support - Real-time response streaming for better UX

🧭 Quick Navigation

🆕 New to BoxLang AI?

Installation Guide Get the module installed in minutes.

Provider Setup Configure your AI providers.

Quickstart Tutorial Your first AI conversation in 5 lines of code.

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⚡ Quick Start Guide

Your first AI conversation in 5 lines of code, plus essential patterns and examples.

What you'll learn:

• Making your first AI chat request

• Understanding basic BIF usage (aiChat, aiMessage, aiModel)

• Provider switching and model selection

• Streaming responses in real-time

• Working with structured output

• Building your first AI agent with tools and memory

• Common patterns and best practices

Time: 15-20 minutes

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📖 Key Concepts

Essential AI terminology and concepts explained in plain language.

What you'll learn:

• AI & Machine Learning fundamentals (LLMs, training vs inference)

• Language model parameters (temperature, top-p, tokens, context windows)

• Messages & conversations (roles, system messages, multi-turn)

• Embeddings & vectors (dimensions, cosine similarity, vector databases)

• Memory systems (conversation, vector, hybrid, multi-tenant)

• RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) workflow

• Tools & function calling

• Streaming & async operations

• Pipelines & composition

• Providers & services comparison

• Tokens & costs

Time: 30 minutes reference

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Quick answers to the most common questions about BoxLang AI.

Topics covered:

• Getting started (why use BoxLang AI, free options, offline usage)

• Providers & models (comparison, recommendations, model selection)

• Costs & pricing (optimization, estimation, budget management)

• Performance & reliability (response variation, speed, handling downtime)

• Features & capabilities (structured output, tools, memory, RAG, multimodal)

• Memory & context (conversation vs vector, multi-tenant isolation)

• Security & privacy (data privacy, prompt injection, API keys)

• Troubleshooting (common errors, rate limits, context length)

• Best practices (aiChat vs aiAgent, memory sizing, caching, error handling)

Time: Quick reference

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🎯 Learning Path

We recommend this progression:

1. 📦 Install - Get the module installed (5 min)

2. 🧩 Configure Providers - Set up your AI providers (10 min)

3. ⚡ Quick Start - Your first AI conversation (10 min)

4. 📖 Key Concepts - Learn AI terminology (reference as needed)

5. 💬 Basic Chatting - Simple interactions and parameters (15 min)

6. 🎯 Advanced Chatting - Streaming, tools, multimodal content (20 min)

7. 🤖 AI Agents - Build autonomous agents (30 min)

💡 Pro Tip: Keep the FAQ handy for quick answers to common questions!

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💡 Quick Examples

Simple Chat

result = aiChat( "What is BoxLang?" );
println( result );

Structured Output

person = aiChat(
    message: "Extract info: John is 30 and lives in NYC",
    structured: {
        name: "string",
        age: "numeric",
        city: "string"
    }
);
println( person.name ); // "John"

AI Agent

agent = aiAgent()
    .withInstructions( "You are a helpful assistant" )
    .withMemory( "windowed" )
    .build();

response = agent.run( "Hello! Remember my name is Alice." );

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🔗 Related Documentation

After mastering the basics, explore these advanced topics:

• 🔄 Pipelines - Build composable AI workflows

• 💭 Memory Systems - Maintain conversation context

• 🛠️ Tools - Enable AI to call functions

• 📄 Document Loaders - Process various file formats

• 🔮 Vector Memory - Semantic search with embeddings

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❓ Need Help?

• 💬 Questions? Check the main documentation

• 🐛 Found a bug? Report it on GitHub

• 💡 Have an idea? Start a discussion