LiotRAG: Cloud-Native RAG System for Knowledge Access

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📖 Project Description

LiotRAG (from Liotru, the symbol of Catania, and RAG, Retrieval-Augmented Generation) is a cloud-native knowledge assistant built on Microsoft Azure and powered by OpenAI.

The system scrapes and indexes resources from the Department of Computer Science and Mathematics, University of Catania, creating a chatbot interface that enables:

• ⚡ Fast access to distributed information across departmental pages
• 🔍 RAG-based retrieval for context-aware question answering
• ☁️ Scalable deployment through Azure-native services

By combining local cultural identity with cutting-edge AI, LiotRAG bridges academic knowledge with next-generation user experiences.

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🏛 Architecture

Key components:

• 🔹 Web Scraper → Extracts content from departmental websites
• 🔹 Azure Storage & Azure Cognitive Search → Centralized indexing of assets
• 🔹 RAG Pipeline with OpenAI API → Context-aware retrieval and LLM integration
• 🔹 Chatbot Interface → User-friendly Q&A with natural language

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🌋 Vision

• Enhance student and faculty productivity by reducing search times
• Showcase how RAG and cloud-native AI can serve local academic communities
• Embed Catania’s identity (Etna, Liotru) into a modern AI research initiative

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Local Frontend

To setup the local frontent, follow these steps

1. Populate the .env.frontend variable with that of the Azure Container App endpoint (do NOT place it in quotes)

2. Build the Docker container

cd ~/LiotRAG

docker build -f ./Dockerfiles/Dockerfile.frontend -t liotrag-frontend:1.0.0 .

3. Run the image locally

docker run --rm --env-file .env.frontend -p 8000:8000 liotrag-frontend:1.0.0

4. Connect to the browser on

http://127.0.0.1:8000/

Where you will find this Frontend UI

And the queries are properly rendered with streaming responses

📜 License

GPL-3.0 — Free to use, modify, and redistribute under the same terms.

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