Installation Guide

This guide walks you through the following steps to install NeMo Guardrails:

  1. Setting up a fresh virtual environment.

  2. Installing using pip.

  3. Installing from Source Code.

  4. Optional dependencies.

  5. Using Docker.

Prerequisites

Python 3.8, 3.9 or 3.10.

Additional dependencies

NeMo Guardrails uses annoy, which is a C++ library with Python bindings. To install it, you need to have a valid C++ runtime on your computer. Most systems already have installed a C++ runtime. If the annoy installation fails due to a missing C++ runtime, you can install a C++ runtime as follows:

Installing a C++ runtime on Linux, Mac, or Unix-based OS

  1. Install gcc and g++ using apt-get install gcc g++.

  2. Update the following environment variables: export CC=path_to_clang and export CXX=path_to_clang (usually, path_to_clang is /usr/bin/clang).

  3. In some cases, you might also need to install the python-dev package using apt-get install python-dev (or apt-get install python3-dev). Check out this thread if the error persists.

Installing a C++ runtime on Windows

Install the Microsoft C++ Build Tools. This installs Microsoft Visual C++ (version 14.0 or greater is required by the latest version of annoy).

Setting up a virtual environment

To experiment with NeMo Guardrails from scratch, use a fresh virtual environment. Otherwise, you can skip to the following section.

Setting up a virtual environment on Linux, Mac, or Unix-based OS

  1. Create a folder, such as my_assistant, for your project.

> mkdir my_assistant
> cd my_assistant

  1. Create a virtual environment.

> python3 -m venv venv

  1. Activate the virtual environment.

> source venv/bin/activate

Setting up a virtual environment on Windows

  1. Open a new CMD prompt (Windows Key + R, cmd.exe)

  2. Install virtualenv using the command pip install virtualenv

  3. Check that virtualenv is installed using the command pip --version.

  4. Install virtualenvwrapper-win using the command pip install virtualenvwrapper-win.

Use the mkvirtualenv name command to activate a new virtual environment called name.

Install NeMo Guardrails

Install NeMo Guardrails using pip:

> pip install nemoguardrails

Installing from source code

NeMo Guardrails is under active development and the main branch always contains the latest development version. To install from source:

  1. Clone the repository:

    git clone https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Guardrails.git

  2. Install the package locally:

    cd NeMo-Guardrails
pip install -e .

Extra dependencies

The nemoguardrails package also defines the following extra dependencies:

  • dev: packages required by some extra Guardrails features for developers, such as the autoreload feature.

  • eval: packages used for the Guardrails evaluation tools.

  • openai: installs the latest openai package supported by NeMo Guardrails.

  • sdd: packages used by the sensitive data detector integrated in NeMo Guardrails.

  • all: installs all extra packages.

To keep the footprint of nemoguardrails as small as possible, these are not installed by default. To install any of the extra dependency you can use pip as well. For example, to install the dev extra dependencies, run the following command:

> pip install nemoguardrails[dev]

Optional dependencies

To use OpenAI, just use the openai extra dependency that ensures that all required packages are installed. Make sure the OPENAI_API_KEY environment variable is set, as shown in the following example, where YOUR_KEY is your OpenAI key.

> pip install nemoguardrails[openai]
> export OPENAI_API_KEY=YOUR_KEY

Some NeMo Guardrails LLMs and features have specific installation requirements, including a more complex set of steps. For example, AlignScore fact-checking, using Llama-2 requires two additional packages. For each feature or LLM example, check the readme file associated with it.

Using Docker

NeMo Guardrails can also be used through Docker. For details on how to build and use the Docker image see NeMo Guardrails with Docker.

What’s next?