ACAI — Adaptive Cognitive AI Architecture

Chapter 1 — Core Foundation 1.1 Objective The first version of ACAI should begin with a small, working core rather than attempting to implement the entire architecture at once. The Chapter 1 pipeline is: User ↓ FastAPI ↓ ACAI Orchestrator ↓ Model Service ↓ AI Model ↓ Response The first implementation uses a Mock Model so the system can be tested without requiring an external API key. 1.2 Project Structure ACAI/ └── backend/ ├── app/ │ ├── __init__.py │ ├── main.py │ ├── config.py │ ├── schemas.py │ ├── orchestrator.py │ └── services/ │ ├── __init__.py │ └── model_service.py │ ├── tests/ │ └── test_api.py │ ├── .env.example ├── requirements.txt └── README.md 1.3 Environment Setup mkdir ACAI cd ACAI mkdir backend cd backend python -m venv . venv Activate the virtual environment: . \.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1 If PowerShell blocks the activation script: Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser RemoteSigned Then activate again: . \.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1 1.4 Dependencies Create requirements.txt : fastapi uvicorn[standard] pydantic pydantic-settings python-dotenv httpx pytest Install: pip install -r requirements.txt 1.5 Configuration Create app/config.py : from pydantic_settings import BaseSettings , SettingsConfigDict class Settings ( BaseSettings ): app_name : str = " ACAI " app_version : str = " 0.1.0 " environment : str = " development " model_provider : str = " mock " model_name : str = " acai-demo-model " api_key : str | None = None model_config = SettingsConfigDict ( env_file = " .env " , env_file_encoding = " utf-8 " , extra = " ignore " , ) settings = Settings () 1.6 Environment Variables Create .env.example : APP_NAME=ACAI APP_VERSION=0.1.0 ENVIRONMENT=development MODEL_PROVIDER=mock MODEL_NAME=acai-demo-model API_KEY= Create the local environment file: copy . env . example . env 1.7 API Schemas Create app/schemas.py : from pydantic import BaseModel , Field class ChatRequest ( BaseModel ): message : str = Field ( ..., min_length = 1 , max_length = 10000 , descr