Installation Guide

Setting Up DreamLens AI Locally

1. Create and activate a virtual environment: python -m venv venv then .\venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1 on Windows.
2. Install dependencies from the requirements file: pip install -r requirements.txt.
3. Generate the placeholder model artifacts by running python model\build_artifacts.py. This only needs to run once.
4. Optional: enable live AI generated interpretations by copying .env.example to .env and adding your Groq API key. Without this step the app uses a local fallback interpretation automatically.
5. Run the model layer tests with pytest tests\ -v to confirm the classifier and symbol detector are working.
6. Start the app with python app.py and open http://127.0.0.1:5000/ for a new dream entry, or http://127.0.0.1:5000/history for the journal history and emotion trend chart.

A SQLite database file is created automatically on first run and seeded with demo entries, so the history page and chart are populated immediately without any manual data entry.