docs/OLLAMA_SETUP.md

Ollama Setup Guide

Ollama allows you to run large language models locally on your Mac/Linux/Windows machine.

Installation

macOS

# Option 1: Download DMG from ollama.ai
# Option 2: Homebrew
brew install ollama

Linux

curl -fsSL https://ollama.ai/install.sh | sh

Windows

Download from https://ollama.ai

Running Ollama

# Start Ollama server (runs in background)
ollama serve

The server will start at http://localhost:11434

Pulling a Model

# Pull Mistral-7B (recommended for recipes - 4.1GB)
ollama pull mistral

# Or pull other models:
ollama pull neural-chat     # 3.9GB - Good for instructions
ollama pull llama2          # 3.8GB - Balanced
ollama pull dolphin-mixtral # 26GB - Larger, better quality

Verify Installation

# List installed models
ollama list

# Test with a simple prompt
curl http://localhost:11434/api/generate -d '{
  "model": "mistral",
  "prompt": "Give me a recipe for pasta",
  "stream": false
}'

Using in Your App

Once Ollama is running, the FastAPI app will automatically:

1. Detect Ollama availability
2. Send detected ingredients to Ollama
3. Generate creative recipes using the LLM
4. Return recipes to the client

No additional configuration needed!

Troubleshooting

"Connection refused"

• Make sure Ollama is running: ollama serve

"Model not found"

• Pull the model: ollama pull mistral

"Out of memory"

• Use smaller models or close other applications
• Or increase Docker memory if using Docker version

"Slow response"

• First response is slower (model loading)
• Subsequent responses are faster
• Consider using a smaller model

Model Recommendations

Model	Size	Speed	Quality	Use Case
mistral	4.1GB	Fast	Good	Recipe generation ✓
neural-chat	3.9GB	Very Fast	Good	Instructions
llama2	3.8GB	Medium	Very Good	General purpose
dolphin-mixtral	26GB	Slow	Excellent	Complex recipes

Recommended: Mistral - Best balance of speed and quality for recipes