📚 RAGnarok: Creating an AI-powered knowledge base for your team, is easier & cheaper than you might think

Introduction

Building an AI-powered knowledge base for your teams is faster, easier, and more cost-effective than you might expect. You don’t need to engage expensive knowledge base vendors or invest in heavy bespoke solutions—instead, with emerging tools like Cloudflare’s AutoRAG, Next.js, and a modest amount of targeted development, it’s possible to spin up a scalable, intelligent knowledge base entirely in-house. This approach delivers greater flexibility, full control over your data, and a tailored experience to meet your team’s unique needs—keeping costs low and velocity high. In the article that follows, you’ll discover exactly how Blueground’s Platform team accomplished this transformation and brought an AI-powered knowledge base to life.

Technical Implementation

Data Sources

The system integrates multiple data sources to create a comprehensive knowledge base:

1. Terraform Documentation: The team generated detailed Terraform documentation using terraform-docs, providing structured information about infrastructure as code.

2. Outline Knowledge: Documentation from Outline, the company's internal knowledge management system, was extracted and integrated into the knowledge base.

Cloudflare AutoRAG Integration

The implementation uses Cloudflare's AutoRAG API with streaming mode enabled, which offers several advantages:

• Real-time response generation
• Efficient handling of large knowledge bases
• Context-aware responses based on the integrated documentation

The API integration is implemented in a Next.js application:

const response = await fetch(CLOUDFLARE_API_URL, {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: {
        'Content-Type': 'application/json',
        'Authorization': `Bearer ${CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN}`,
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({
        query,
        stream: true,
        ranking_options: {
            score_threshold: 0.4
        },
    }),
});

User Interface and Frontend Development

The knowledge base features a meticulously crafted user interface that was developed using a vibe coding approach, where the focus was on creating an intuitive and aesthetically pleasing experience. The frontend components were built with careful attention to detail and user experience:

• Vibe-Coded Components: The UI was developed with a strong emphasis on visual harmony and user experience, resulting in a cohesive and engaging interface.
• Modern Design System: The application uses a consistent design language with carefully chosen colors, typography, and spacing.
• Responsive Layouts: The interface adapts seamlessly across different device sizes while maintaining its visual appeal.

Key frontend features include:

• A clean, minimal question input form with a minimum character requirement
• Real-time streaming of responses with smooth animations
• Markdown support for beautifully formatted answers
• Interactive elements with subtle hover effects and transitions
• Loading states with elegant spinners and progress indicators
• Error handling with user-friendly feedback messages

Technical Architecture

The system is built on a modern tech stack:

• Frontend: Next.js with React, featuring vibe-coded components
• Backend: Node.js
• Database: PostgreSQL
• Containerization: Docker with multi-stage builds
• Deployment: AWS ECR and EKS

The application follows best practices for security and performance:

• Environment-based configuration
• Secure credential management
• Efficient streaming implementation for AutoRAG responses
• Error handling and logging

Benefits

1. Efficient Knowledge Retrieval: Users can quickly find information without manually searching through multiple documentation sources.

2. Context-Aware Responses: The system provides relevant answers based on the integrated knowledge base.

3. Real-time Interaction: Streaming mode enables immediate feedback and progressive response generation.

4. Scalability: The architecture allows for easy addition of new knowledge sources and scaling of the system.

5. Engaging User Experience: The vibe-coded interface makes interacting with the knowledge base a pleasant and intuitive experience.

Future Enhancements

The system is designed to be extensible, with potential future enhancements including:

• Integration of additional knowledge sources
• Improved response ranking and relevance
• Enhanced user interaction features
• Analytics and usage tracking
• Further refinement of the vibe-coded UI components

Conclusion

Ragnarok is more than a knowledge base—it's a paradigm shift. By merging cutting-edge AI with stunning user experience, it turns documentation into dialogue and queries into knowledge.

The Platform team has not only built a powerful internal tool but also set a new bar for what knowledge management should look and feel like in the age of AI.

The system's architecture and implementation provide a solid foundation for future enhancements and scaling, while the vibe-coded user interface sets a high standard for user experience and visual design in internal tools. This combination of powerful backend technology and carefully crafted frontend components makes Ragnarok a valuable asset for The Blueground's internal knowledge management strategy.