Backend of the leading political information chatbot for the German federal elections 2025.

Application URL: https://wahl.chat/
About page: https://wahl.chat/about-us

The aim of wahl.chat is to enable users to engage in a contemporary way with the positions of political parties and to receive answers to individual questions that can be substantiated with sources.

We appreciate contributions from our community. Please take a look at the open issues, if you are interested.
If you are unsure where to start, please contact [email protected]. Further specifications coming soon.

This project is source-available under the PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 license.

• Free for non-commercial use (see LICENSE for permitted purposes)
• Share the license text and any Required Notice: lines when distributing
• Please contact us at [email protected] to a. Inform us about your use case b. Get access to assets required for a reference to wahl.chat on your project page
• Do not use the wahl.chat name or logo in your project without our permission

This project was initially implemented for the German political system. To adapt it for use in other countries, you will need to adjust the prompts and data schemas to fit the target locale and political context.

ℹ️ Need help? If you have any remaining setup questions, please contact us at [email protected].

1. Install poetry using the official installer using python 3.10-3.12 (curl -sSL https://install.python-poetry.org | python3 -)
2. Run poetry install in the root directory of this repository (run poetry install --with dev to install with dev dependencies)

poetry run pre-commit install

Create a .env file with the environment variables as defined in .env.example. Regarding the Langchain API key you have 3 Options (it is needed for langchain tracing on smith.langchain.com)

1. Set up your own project and API key at smith.langchain.com
2. Set LANGCHAIN_TRACING_V2=false to deactivate tracing.

Run gcloud auth application-default login and authenticate with your Google Cloud account that has access to the Firebase wahl-chat-dev project. Make sure to set the project your Firebase wahl-chat-dev project in the gcloud CLI with gcloud config set project wahl-chat-dev.

Add a file named wahl-chat-dev-firebase-adminsdk.json to the root directory of this repository. This file can be generated at https://console.firebase.google.com/u/0/project/wahl-chat-dev/settings/serviceaccounts/adminsdk

poetry run python -m src.aiohttp_app --debug

1. Build the image

   docker build -t wahl-chat:latest .

2. Run using a Firebase Admin SDK service account file (dev/prod)

   • Prerequisites:

     • .env in the project root (see .env.example)
     • For dev: wahl-chat-dev-firebase-adminsdk.json in the project root before building the image (download from the Firebase console as described above).
     • For prod: wahl-chat-firebase-adminsdk.json in the project root before building the image.

   • Run (dev):

     docker run --env-file .env -p 8080:8080 wahl-chat:latest

     With ENV=dev in .env, the backend will use wahl-chat-dev-firebase-adminsdk.json inside the container if present; otherwise it falls back to Application Default Credentials.

   • Run (prod):

     docker run --env-file .env -p 8080:8080 wahl-chat:latest

     With ENV=prod in .env, the backend will use wahl-chat-firebase-adminsdk.json inside the container if present; otherwise it falls back to Application Default Credentials.

3. Run using Google Application Default Credentials (gcloud ADC)

   • Prerequisites:

     • gcloud auth application-default login has been run locally.
     • Your ADC file exists at ~/.config/gcloud/application_default_credentials.json.

   • Command:

     ADC=~/.config/gcloud/application_default_credentials.json && \
     docker run --env-file .env \
       -e GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=/tmp/keys/application_default_credentials.json \
       -e GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT=wahl-chat-dev \
       -v ${ADC}:/tmp/keys/application_default_credentials.json:ro \
       -p 8080:8080 \
       wahl-chat:latest

     In this setup, wahl-chat-*-firebase-adminsdk.json file is not required in the image. Firebase Admin will use the mounted ADC credentials instead. Make sure to set the GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT environment variable to the project ID of the Firebase project you want to use.

Prerequisite: run the backend locally

All websocket tests: poetry run pytest tests/test_websocket_app.py -s

Specific websocket test: poetry run pytest tests/test_websocket_app.py -k test_get_chat_answer -s

Note: the following commands are to be run in the firebase directory of this repository.

Firebase CLI: npm install -g firebase-tools & firebase login node-firestore-import-export: npm install -g node-firestore-import-export

0. Select the project you want to deploy to: firebase use dev or firebase use prod
1. Deploying the Firestore Rules: firebase deploy --only firestore:rules
2. Deploying the Storage Rules: firebase deploy --only storage
3. Deploying the Firestore Indexes: firebase deploy --only firestore:indexes
4. Deploying the Firebase Functions: firebase deploy --only functions
5. Deploying a specific function: firebase deploy --only functions:FUNCTION_NAME

1. Export the parties from the dev-database: firestore-export --accountCredentials ../wahl-chat-dev-firebase-adminsdk.json --backupFile firestore_data/dev/parties.json --nodePath parties -p
2. Copy firestore_data/dev/parties.json to firestore_data/prod/parties.json
3. IMPORTANT: Replace Firebase-Storage dev-URLs with prod-URLs (e.g. https://storage.googleapis.com/wahl-chat-dev.firebasestorage.app/public/bsw/Kurzwahlprogramm%20BTW25_2024-12-21.pdf --> https://storage.googleapis.com/wahl-chat.firebasestorage.app/public/bsw/Kurzwahlprogramm%20BTW25_2024-12-21.pdf): ctrl-f for https://storage.googleapis.com/wahl-chat-dev.firebasestorage.app and replace with https://storage.googleapis.com/wahl-chat.firebasestorage.app
4. Import the parties to the prod-database: firestore-import --accountCredentials ../wahl-chat-firebase-adminsdk.json --backupFile firestore_data/prod/parties.json --nodePath parties

1. Export from the party where the questions already exist firestore-export --accountCredentials ../wahl-chat-dev-firebase-adminsdk.json --backupFile firestore_data/proposed_questions_afd_questions.json --nodePath proposed_questions/afd/questions -p
2. Import to the party where the questions should be added firestore-import --accountCredentials ../wahl-chat-dev-firebase-adminsdk.json --backupFile firestore_data/proposed_questions_afd_questions.json --nodePath proposed_questions/bsw/questions

1. Export the proposed_questions collection from dev: firestore-export --accountCredentials ../wahl-chat-dev-firebase-adminsdk.json --backupFile firestore_data/proposed_questions.json --nodePath proposed_questions -p
2. Modify the firestore_data/proposed_questions.json file
3. Import the proposed_questions collection to dev: firestore-import --accountCredentials ../wahl-chat-dev-firebase-adminsdk.json --backupFile firestore_data/proposed_questions.json --nodePath proposed_questions

1. Export the proposed_questions collection from dev: firestore-export --accountCredentials ../wahl-chat-dev-firebase-adminsdk.json --backupFile firestore_data/proposed_questions.json --nodePath proposed_questions -p
2. Import the proposed_questions collection to prod: firestore-import --accountCredentials ../wahl-chat-firebase-adminsdk.json --backupFile firestore_data/proposed_questions.json --nodePath proposed_questions