Section 7: LLM access via API

Under every assistant and agent is an API call. This section takes you underneath the chat window: getting an API key, understanding how ellmer talks to a provider, building a simple chat and a DIY chatbot, then building your own coding agent from scratch — writing the tool-calling loop by hand so nothing is hidden — running experiments with it to compare models and prompts, and finally applying all of it to a literature review example.

Connolly, R. M., D. V. Fairclough, E. L. Jinks, E. M. Ditria, G. Jackson, S. Lopez-Marcano, A. D. Olds, and K. I. Jinks. 2021. “Improved Accuracy for Automated Counting of a Fish in Baited Underwater Videos for Stock Assessment.” Frontiers in Marine Science 8: 658135. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.658135.