Complete User Guide & Documentation

How to Use AskMyDocs

Everything you need to get started — from Ollama deployment options to uploading documents, asking questions, and using enterprise features.

⚡ Quick Start

1
Install Ollama
Download and install Ollama from ollama.ai. Pull the required models.
```
ollama pull qwen3:4b
ollama pull nomic-embed-text
```

Configure .env.local

Create a .env.local file in the project root with your settings.

OLLAMA_URL=http://localhost:11434
NEXTAUTH_SECRET=your-secret-key
VAULT_SECRET_KEY=your-vault-key

3
Install & Run
Install dependencies and start the development server.
```
npm install
npm run dev
```
4
Open the App
Navigate to the app in your browser and start uploading documents.
```
http://localhost:3000/app
```

Launch App Download Ollama

🚀 Ollama Deployment Options

AskMyDocs supports three deployment configurations. Choose the one that best fits your needs.

Option A — Local Ollama

Default · Recommended

✅ Pros

100% private — no data leaves your machine
Free to use, no API costs
Works offline after initial model download
Full control over models and configuration

⚠️ Cons

•Requires a capable GPU or fast CPU
•Slower on low-end hardware
•Limited to models your hardware can run

.env.local

OLLAMA_URL=http://localhost:11434
# No API key needed

Option B — Ollama Cloud

No GPU Required

✅ Pros

No local GPU required
Access to large models (70B, 405B)
Faster responses for big models
Scales automatically

⚠️ Cons

•Requires internet connection
•Data sent to Ollama Cloud servers
•Subscription cost (~$20–$50/month)

.env.local

OLLAMA_URL=https://api.ollama.com
OLLAMA_API_KEY=ollama_sk_your_api_key_here

Option C — Hybrid (Local + Cloud Fallback)

High Availability

✅ Pros

Uses local Ollama when available
Automatically falls back to Cloud if local is down
Best of both worlds
High availability and resilience

⚠️ Cons

•Requires both local setup and cloud API key
•More complex configuration

.env.local

OLLAMA_URL=http://localhost:11434
OLLAMA_CLOUD_URL=https://api.ollama.com
OLLAMA_API_KEY=ollama_sk_your_api_key_here
ENABLE_CLOUD_FALLBACK=true

📋 Migrating to Cloud

1Get an API key from https://ollama.com/settings/keys
2Run: npm run setup-ollama-cloud
3Update .env.local with your API key
4Re-index documents: npm run ingest
5Test your setup, then deploy to production

☁️ Ollama Cloud Pricing

Tier	Price	Models	Best For
Free	$0	7B – 13B	Testing & development
Pro	~$20/mo	Up to 70B	Production workloads
Max	~$50/mo	Up to 405B	Enterprise scale

📤 Uploading Documents

Drag & Drop Upload

1. Go to /app
2. Click the "Upload Documents" button
3. Drag & drop files or click to browse
4. Files are indexed automatically on next query

Manual Indexing

1. Place files in the docs/ folder
2. Run npm run ingest
3. Index saved to data/index.json

📄 Supported Formats

PDFWord (.docx)Excel (.xlsx)TXTMarkdownHTMLJSONCSVJSTSPNG (OCR)JPG (OCR)TIFF (OCR)

Max file size: 10MB per file. OCR is applied automatically to images and scanned PDFs.

💬 Asking Questions

1
Navigate to the app
Go to /app. You must be signed in (default: admin@askmydocs.local / admin123).
2
Type your question
Enter your question in plain English in the text area. Be specific for better results.
3
Submit your question
Press Ctrl/Cmd + Enter or click the "Ask" button to submit.
4
Review the answer
The answer includes the AI response, source documents with confidence scores, and debug info.
5
Ask follow-ups
AskMyDocs remembers the last 6 messages for contextual conversation.

⌨️ Keyboard Shortcuts

Ctrl/Cmd + EnterSubmit question

Ctrl/Cmd + SExport as Markdown

EscExit fullscreen

🌟 Enterprise Features

Authentication

/app

1. Navigate to /app — redirects to sign-in
2. Default: admin@askmydocs.local / admin123
3. Sessions persist 30 days via JWT

💡 Change default credentials in production via NEXTAUTH_SECRET.

Encrypted Vault

/app/features → Vault tab

1. Go to Features → Encrypted Vault
2. Drag & drop files to encrypt with AES-256
3. Download to decrypt, delete when done

💡 Keep your VAULT_SECRET_KEY backed up — without it files cannot be decrypted.

Voice Q&A

/app/features → Voice tab

1. Go to Features → Voice Q&A
2. Click the microphone button
3. Speak your question clearly
4. Answer is displayed and optionally read aloud

💡 Best supported in Chrome and Edge. Requires microphone permission.

Analytics Dashboard

/app/features → Analytics tab

1. All searches are automatically logged
2. View top queries, documents, and knowledge gaps
3. Filter by 7 / 30 / 90 / 365 days
4. Export analytics to JSON

💡 Use Analytics to identify missing documentation topics.

Folder Watcher

/app/features → Settings tab

1. Start the watcher from Features → Settings
2. Add / modify files in docs/ folder
3. Re-indexing triggers automatically after 3s

💡 Stop the watcher when not needed to save resources.

OCR (Image Text Extraction)

Automatic on image upload

1. Upload PNG, JPG, TIFF, or scanned PDF
2. Tesseract OCR extracts text automatically
3. Confidence score reported for each extraction
4. Text is indexed and searchable like any document

💡 Use high-quality scans (300 DPI+) for best OCR accuracy.

⚙️ Environment Variables

Variable	Required	Description	Default
OLLAMA_URL	Yes	Ollama server URL (local or cloud)	http://localhost:11434
OLLAMA_API_KEY	Cloud only	API key for Ollama Cloud	—
OLLAMA_CLOUD_URL	Hybrid only	Cloud fallback URL	https://api.ollama.com
ENABLE_CLOUD_FALLBACK	Hybrid only	Enable automatic cloud fallback	false
NEXTAUTH_URL	Yes	Public URL of your app	http://localhost:3000
NEXTAUTH_SECRET	Yes	Secret for JWT signing	—
VAULT_SECRET_KEY	Yes	AES-256 key for Encrypted Vault	—
NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_NAME	No	Display name for the app	AskMyDocs

Generate a secure secret key:

node -e "console.log(require('crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('hex'))"

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Ready to get started?

Launch the app and start asking questions about your documents.

Launch AskMyDocs View on GitHub