Project · 2026
The Founding Group Chat
A shareable RAG web app where the Founding Fathers (plus Abigail Adams) debate modern 2026 topics in a live group chat, each reply grounded in their real writings.
A fun-first, shareable web app: ask a modern question and watch eight historical figures argue about it in a live group chat — every reply grounded in their actual writings through retrieval.
How it works. A local hybrid search (dense vectors + BM25 over a corpus of the founders’ writings, embedded with fastembed and stored in LanceDB) pulls the most relevant passages. A single Claude call then generates an in-character, multi-speaker exchange — complete with self-rated confidence and an optional “who won” verdict. Replies stream in with staggered, human-like timing so it reads like a real chat rather than a wall of text.
Engineering. FastAPI backend with prompt caching, a daily token-budget kill-switch, per-IP rate limiting, and a response cache to keep API spend bounded for a public launch. Conversations are persisted to Supabase Postgres and shareable, with auto-generated OpenGraph image cards so links unfurl cleanly on social. Deployed on Fly.io with a warm instance and remote builds.