Summary for ST Beginners.md

# Summary for ST Beginners (Work in Progress)

Hello everyone. This is a brief summary of the most frequently asked questions I receive. I will try to provide concise answers and summaries for all topics. I'm not an expert, LLM is just a hobby in my free time. It's only my way to set up things, feel free to skip chapters. I will not turn myself into support on call, if something isn't working - try to Google it yourself or go to ST-discord support channels to ask about it (without mentioning me or this summary). Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong somewhere with proper arguments.

# I'm a Beginner, How Do I Run ST and What Is It?

SillyTavern is a frontend for LLM models. To use it you need to run LLM locally or have access to Web solutions.

## What Can I Run, and How Do I Properly Install and Set Up Any of This?

### What Is All This Running On?

* Python
* Miniconda
* Hopes and dreams

You are not a kid, if you don't know what these are, Google it.

### Where Do We Start?

* We go here [SillyTavern-Launcher](https://github.com/SillyTavern/SillyTavern-Launcher) and follow all the installation steps.

### What Can I Run on My Machine?

If you have:

* NVIDIA newer than 20xx RTX card then it's a no-brainer - use exl2 models.
  From the get-go do this- open NVIDIA Control Panel -> Manage 3D Settings -> CUDA - Sysmem Fallback Policy : Prefer No Sysmem Fallback

  1. [oobabooga/text-generation-webui](https://github.com/oobabooga/text-generation-webui)  oobabooga is the name of the creator of text-generation-webui but everyone calls text-generation-webui as oobabooga
  2. [TabbyAPI](https://github.com/theroyallab/tabbyAPI) How to setup [Getting-Started](https://github.com/theroyallab/tabbyAPI/wiki/1.-Getting-Started)
* Other GPU/APU gguf

  1. [Koboldcpp](https://github.com/LostRuins/koboldcpp)
  2. [Ollama](https://github.com/ollama/ollama)
  3. Others
* Web API

### Set up Windows Terminal - PowerShell - oh-my-posh Setup - Conda env - git UI. Do I Need To Do All Of This?

> **You don't.**

* Set up Conda env in PowerShell

  ```
  conda init powershell
  ```
* oh-my-posh Setup

  [Intro and how to setup](https://www.hanselman.com/blog/my-ultimate-powershell-prompt-with-oh-my-posh-and-the-windows-terminal)

  After all done open in editor selected theme and add this segment where you want (find "segments": [ ) to have python environment segment.

  ```
  {
      "background": "#FFDE57",
      "foreground": "#111111",
      "powerline_symbol": "\ue0b0",
      "properties": {
      "home_enabled": true,
      "display_mode": "environment",
      "fetch_virtual_env": true,
      "display_virtual_env": true,
      "fetch_version": true
      },
      "style": "powerline",
      "template": " \ue235 {{ .Full }}{{ if .Venv }} {{ .Venv }}{{ end }} ",
      "type": "python"
  }
  ```

## How to Properly Install ST?

* SillyTavern-Launcher

## How to Use?

* Cards
  - chub.ai
* User Settings
* Extensions
  - Where Can I Find More?

## How Does It Work?

## What is a Context Template and Why Should I Care About It?

## Author's Note/LoreBook?

## What Else Can I Use with ST, and How to Install and Set Up All of This?

* SillyTavern-extras
* XTTS
* StableDiffusion

## How to Change ST to Look Like Yours?

* CSS

## What More Can I Do?

* STscript
* mergekit
* exllamav2