Changes in rest-api/reader code base not showing when docker-compose up

[Renuk9390]

Dear Community,
I am working on the Haystack Demo app, in this regard I have the following questions:

1. I want to increase the size of the context in the demo app front end, so I tried setting a new environment variable in rest-api/config.py (reference: How to increase the size of the context? #205) and even in nodes/reader/farm.py as follows:
   i) in reader/farm.py ---> context_window_size: int = 300
   ii) in rest-api/config.py ---> export CONTEXT_WINDOW_SIZE=300

But I can still see only 150 tokens in the demo app in the local host when the results are shown.

2. This is related above question, to see any changes in rest-api code base for instance in webapp.py, I am performing the following steps:
   • sudo docker-compose down
   • sudo docker system prune -a
   • sudo docker-compose up

In this case, 'prune' will erase everything, and 'up' command will set up everything from scratch as shown below, nearly 5 GB of content/Softwares/etc is recreated:

 Creating network "haystack_default" with the default driver

Building ui
Sending build context to Docker daemon 43.01kB
Step 1/6 : FROM python:3.7.4-stretch
3.7.4-stretch: Pulling from library/python
9a0b0ce99936: Pull complete
db3b6004c61a: Pull complete
f8f075920295: Pull complete
6ef14aff1139: Pull complete
0bbd8b48260f: Pull complete
9f9509d27b35: Pull complete
f300a57cfca1: Pull complete
21507b32fc6d: Pull complete
861289d3f5cf: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:01f8c2bff9cd007ca5b75c5e21a4c56a33d502cf091c2a1c574bf562be1a8e4f
Status: Downloaded newer image for python:3.7.4-stretch
---> 9c5a6f98cfe8
Step 2/6 : COPY . /ui
...........

Is there a better way to make visible the changes made in the code base while running the demo app locally using docker-compose up command?

Any help in this regard is highly appreciated!

Best,
Renuk

[vblagoje]

Hey @Renuk9390 , apologies for being late to assist you, have you made any progress so far?

[Renuk9390]

Hi @vblagoje,
thanks for your reply.
Unfortunately not yet. If I want to work delete the uploaded files in the front, I have to do the prune command, which is of course not efficient because I have to again pull everything, this will consume a lot of time. Any suggestions will be highly appreciated.

[vblagoje]

@TuanaCelik, who might know the answer for the context_window_size setting in our team?

[bilgeyucel]

Hey @Renuk9390, let me try to help you there:

1. The best way to set context_window_size is to do it in the YAML file where you define your pipeline nodes, Reader, Retriever etc.
   Check the example pipeline YAML file, there is already context_window_size set for you, you can just change the value and it should start working 🚀
   Issue How to increase the size of the context? #205 seems like an old one and I don't think CONTEXT_WINDOW_SIZE is an environment variable anymore.

2. Updating rest_api or webapp.py while using docker is a bit tricky. The current docker compose file can run the demo smoothly but to make changes in rest_api or in ui, you need to deal with docker volumes. What I would suggest here to use gunicorn for rest_api and streamlit for ui. After having a running Elasticsearch instance:

   • Install ui/ and rest_api/ modules:

   pip install -e rest_api/
   pip install -e ui/
   

   • Update rest_api and webapp.py in which way you'd like
   • Run gunicorn server for REST API

   gunicorn rest_api.application:app -b 0.0.0.0:8000 -k uvicorn.workers.UvicornWorker -t 300
   

   • After gunicorn server is up and running, start the streamlit application with streamlit run webapp.py inside the ui/ folder.
   • You can then see your new app on http://localhost:8501/

I hope these help 🙏 Let us know if you have any further questions