Cutter v2 Backend

Redis-backed FastAPI service providing text and optional voice chat for the Cutter project.

Setup

1. Create and activate a virtual environment

   python -m venv .venv
   source .venv/bin/activate

2. Install dependencies

   pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Configure environment

   cp .env.example .env

   Fill in the values (OpenAI key, Redis URL, helplines, etc.).
4. Run the server

   uvicorn main:app --reload

Environment Variables

• OPENAI_API_KEY
• OPENAI_CHAT_MODEL
• REDIS_URL (use rediss:// for TLS)
• ALLOWED_ORIGINS
• VOICE_ALLOWED
• NA_HELPLINE_UK
• EMERGENCY_UK
• SESSION_TTL_SECONDS
• RATE_LIMIT_PER_MINUTE
• LOG_LEVEL

Redis

The service stores sessions and user memory in Redis. Use Redis Cloud or another managed instance. For local development the tests use fakeredis.

Tests

Run the test suite with:

pytest

Deployment

On Render, set main:app as the entry point and configure environment variables in the dashboard. Provide a TLS Redis URL and OpenAI key.

Frontend

web/js/cutter-client.js offers minimal helpers for the WordPress frontend to call the API.