Setup and notebook primer
Get to the starting line: open a notebook in your browser, run your first lines of Python, store a free Gemini key safely, and get a first answer from a model. You need a Google account. You do not need any Python experience, and you install nothing.
Colab opens a fresh copy each time. Save your own with File, then Save a copy in Drive.
How the course works¶
Each module has a notebook: a page in Google Colab that mixes short explanations with cells of Python you run one at a time. The notebook is the lesson. This page gets you to it, and tells you what you will have at the end.
Across Modules 0 to 4 you build one assistant over a small set of veterinary documents: practice protocols for a made-up clinic, and four published articles. By Module 4 it answers questions from those documents, cites its sources, and says when the documents do not cover a question.
What you do in this module¶
- Open the notebook, and save your own copy in Google Drive.
- Learn just enough Python: running a cell, variables, text, lists, and reading an error.
- Get a free Gemini key in Google AI Studio, and store it in Colab's Secrets.
- Ask a model your first question.
Where does your key go: in a notebook cell, or in Colab's Secrets?
In Colab's Secrets, never in a cell. A notebook can be shared, and anything typed in a cell travels with it. Secrets stay in your Google account. If a key ever leaks, delete it in Google AI Studio and create a new one.
Before you send anything to a model¶
On Gemini's free tier, Google may use what you send, and the replies, to improve its products, and people at Google may read them. Never send client names, contact details or real patient records. The course only uses made-up and published material. (Checked October 2026.)
If you get stuck¶
This is a pilot draft. If a step is unclear or an error stops you, open an issue on the course repo and say which notebook and step. Never paste your key there.
Where next
Building a RAG system: Module 1: Why RAG exists
A shared question channel is on the way. When it opens, each answer will be written once and shared with everyone taking the course.