Biergarten Pipeline
A C++20 command-line pipeline that samples city records from local JSON, enriches each with Wikipedia context, and generates bilingual brewery names and descriptions via a local GGUF model or a deterministic mock.
Table of Contents
- How It Fits The Main App
- Tech Stack
- Build
- Model
- Run
- Architecture
- Generated Output
- Language Generation Quality
- Tested Hardware
- Repo Layout
- Code Tour
- Fixture Strategy
- Next Steps
How It Fits The Main App
The pipeline is a data ingestion layer. It sits outside the web app runtime and produces seed records the app imports at startup or during a dedicated seed step.
| Planned app area | Pipeline contribution |
|---|---|
| Brewery discovery and management | Sampled city records, localized names, long-form descriptions |
| Beer reviews and ratings | Stable brewery fixtures with enough context to anchor review pages |
| Social follow relationships | Repeatable brewery entities for feeds, follows, and saved lists |
| Geospatial brewery experiences | Latitude, longitude, and country-level metadata |
Tech Stack
- C++20
- CMake 3.24+
- Boost.JSON, Boost.ProgramOptions, Boost.DI
- spdlog
- libcurl
- SQLite amalgamation fetched and compiled via CMake FetchContent
- llama.cpp
The build fetches Boost.DI, spdlog, llama.cpp, and SQLite via CMake. Metal is enabled on Apple Silicon; CUDA or HIP/ROCm is detected on Linux when the toolkit is present.
Code Style: Modern C++20 throughout - RAII for ownership,
std::unique_ptrfor injected dependencies,std::optionalfor parse outcomes,std::spanfor read-only views over generated city data, structured bindings in pipeline loops. Formatting follows the Google C++ Style Guide via.clang-formatwith a narrow column limit and two-space indentation.
Build
Requirements: C++20 compiler, CMake 3.24+, libcurl, Boost (JSON and ProgramOptions). SQLite is fetched from the upstream amalgamation, so no system SQLite package is required.
cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build
Model
Skip this step if you only need
--mocked.
mkdir -p models
curl -L \
-o models/google_gemma-4-E4B-it-Q6_K.gguf \
https://huggingface.co/bartowski/google_gemma-4-E4B-it-GGUF/resolve/main/google_gemma-4-E4B-it-Q6_K.gguf?download=true
Run
Run from build/ so the copied locations.json and prompts/ are available. Each run also writes a fresh dated SQLite file such as biergarten_seed_2026-04-19T15-30-45.123456Z.sqlite into the working directory.
./biergarten-pipeline --mocked
./biergarten-pipeline --model models/google_gemma-4-E4B-it-Q6_K.gguf --temperature 1.0 --top-p 0.95 --top-k 64 --n-ctx 8192 --seed -1
CLI Flags
| Flag | Purpose |
|---|---|
--mocked |
Deterministic mock generator, no model required. |
--model, -m |
Path to a GGUF file. Required unless --mocked is set. |
--temperature |
Sampling temperature. Default: 1.0. |
--top-p |
Nucleus sampling. Default: 0.95. |
--top-k |
Top-k sampling. Default: 64. |
--n-ctx |
Context window size. Default: 8192. |
--seed |
Random seed. Default: -1 (random at runtime). |
--help, -h |
Print usage and exit. |
--mocked and --model are mutually exclusive. Omitting both exits with an error before the pipeline starts. Sampling flags are ignored when --mocked is set.
The post-build step copies prompts/ into build/prompts/. Rebuild after editing prompts/system.md.
Architecture
Pipeline Stages
| Stage | Implementation |
|---|---|
| Load | JsonLoader::LoadLocations() reads locations.json into typed Location records. |
| Sample | BiergartenDataGenerator::QueryCitiesWithCountries() samples up to 50 locations per run. |
| Enrich | WikipediaService fetches city and beer context. Keeps going when a lookup fails. |
| Generate | MockGenerator or LlamaGenerator produces brewery names and descriptions in English and the local language. |
| Store | SqliteExportService writes each successful brewery into a fresh dated .sqlite database with normalized location and brewery tables. |
| Log | spdlog writes results and warnings to the console. |
If enrichment or generation fails for a city, that city is skipped and the pipeline continues.
Key Components
src/main.cc- argument parsing and Boost.DI composition root.JsonLoader- validates curated location input.WikipediaService- queries Wikipedia extracts, caches results, returns empty context on failure.LlamaGenerator- formats prompts for Gemma 4, validates JSON output, retries malformed responses up to three times. If output looks truncated, the retry raises the token budget before trying again.MockGenerator- stable hash-based output so the same city input always produces the same brewery.SqliteExportService- creates a dated SQLite file per run and persists each successful brewery into normalized tables.- Brewery payloads include English and local-language name and description fields.
Runtime Behaviour
WikipediaService queries city, country, and beer-related Wikipedia extracts using its configured lookup, then caches the first successful response per query string. The fetched extract text is included in the prompt as context for generation.
GetLocationContext() returns an empty string when the web client is unavailable or when lookup/parsing fails.
LlamaGenerator validates model output as structured JSON. The retry path exists as a safety hatch for cases where the reasoning block consumes available token budget and compresses the JSON output space. All runs to date have produced valid output on the first pass; the path is kept for resilience.
MockGenerator uses stable hashes for repeatable output in demos and Storybook runs.
Process Flow - Activity Diagram
Architectural Overview - Class Diagram
Generated Output
Each successful run stores a GeneratedBrewery pair with the source location and a BreweryResult payload. The same generated records are also written to a fresh SQLite export file named with the current UTC timestamp.
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
name_en |
Brewery name in English. |
description_en |
Brewery description in English. |
name_local |
Brewery name in the local language. |
description_local |
Brewery description in the local language. |
The log dump also includes city, country, state or province, ISO subdivision code, latitude, and longitude for each entry.
Consumer Data Shape
| Field | Why it matters |
|---|---|
city, state_province, country |
Human-readable location labels and page headings |
iso3166_1, iso3166_2 |
Filtering, regional grouping, locale matching |
latitude, longitude |
Map pins and nearby brewery views |
local_languages |
Locale-aware copy selection |
name_en, description_en |
Default English display content |
name_local, description_local |
Local-language display content |
region_context |
Richer copy for cards and detail pages |
Language Generation Quality
The generation pipeline passes local language codes to the model to retrieve a translated description_local.
Output quality is reliable for high-resource languages such as French, though it may struggle with regional variants and idiomatic phrasing. This can be seen with these data points:
[
{
"city": "Kinshasa",
"state_province": "Kinshasa",
"iso3166_2": "CD-KN",
"country": "Democratic Republic of the Congo",
"iso3166_1": "CD",
"latitude": -4.4419,
"longitude": 15.2663,
"local_languages": ["fr-CD", "ln"]
},
{
"city": "Paris",
"state_province": "Île-de-France",
"iso3166_2": "FR-IDF",
"country": "France",
"iso3166_1": "FR",
"latitude": 48.8566,
"longitude": 2.3522,
"local_languages": ["fr-FR"]
},
{
"city": "Abidjan",
"state_province": "Abidjan",
"iso3166_2": "CI-AB",
"country": "Ivory Coast",
"iso3166_1": "CI",
"latitude": 5.36,
"longitude": -4.0083,
"local_languages": ["fr-CI"]
},
{
"city": "Montreal",
"state_province": "Quebec",
"iso3166_2": "CA-QC",
"country": "Canada",
"iso3166_1": "CA",
"latitude": 45.5017,
"longitude": -73.5673,
"local_languages": ["fr-CA"]
},
{
"city": "Brussels",
"state_province": "Brussels-Capital Region",
"iso3166_2": "BE-BRU",
"country": "Belgium",
"iso3166_1": "BE",
"latitude": 50.8503,
"longitude": 4.3517,
"local_languages": ["fr-BE", "nl-BE"]
}
]
Output sample: ./out-sample/french-cities.example
Known Issues
Low-Resource Language Hallucination
For languages such as Welsh (Wales), Maori (Aotearoa/New Zealand), or Sicilian (Sicily, Italy), the model can generate text that looks syntactically plausible but is semantically incoherent. This comes from limited training-data coverage rather than prompt engineering.
Proposed Mitigations
- Prevention via allowlist: introduce a high-resource language allowlist. If a location's code is unlisted, skip
description_localgeneration and fall back to English. - Upstream sanitization: strip known low-resource language codes from the
locations.jsonpayload before generation. - Downstream flagging: add a
description_local_confidencecolumn to the SQLite schema so downstream applications can filter or flag potentially hallucinated text by language tier.
Tested Hardware
ARM macOS - M1 Pro
| Host | MacBook Pro 14" (2021) |
| CPU | Apple M1 Pro (8-core) |
| GPU | Apple M1 Pro (14-core integrated) |
| Memory | 16 GB |
| Model | Gemma 4 E4B |
| Inference | llama.cpp with Metal |
x86_64 Linux - NVIDIA RTX 2000
| Host | ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 (Fedora 43) |
| CPU | Intel Core Ultra 7 155H |
| GPU | NVIDIA RTX 2000 Ada Generation |
| Memory | 32 GB |
| Model | Gemma 4 E4B |
| Inference | llama.cpp with CUDA 12.x |
Repo Layout
| Path | Purpose |
|---|---|
includes/ |
Public headers and shared models. |
src/ |
Implementation files. |
locations.json |
Curated city input copied into the build tree. |
prompts/ |
System prompt used by the model-backed path. |
diagrams/ |
Architecture and pipeline diagrams. |
Code Tour
src/main.cc- argument parsing and DI composition root.src/biergarten_data_generator/- orchestration, sampling, logging, and export.src/services/wikipedia/- enrichment service and cache.src/services/sqlite/- SQLite export implementation.src/data_generation/llama/- local inference, prompt loading, output validation.src/data_generation/mock/- deterministic fallback.
Fixture Strategy
--mockedfor stable fixtures, repeatable screenshots, and Storybook runs.--modelwhen geographically grounded content matters for demos.- Keep
locations.jsonstructured enough to support discovery and future filtering. - Treat SQLite output as seed material for the app's brewery domain, not production data.
Next Steps
The pipeline currently produces city-aware brewery records and dated SQLite exports. The next passes add additional fixture types so the app can exercise the full brewery domain without live data.
Testing (Very High Importance)
- Unit test JSON validation and retry logic against malformed, truncated, and empty model outputs.
- Integration test the enrichment pipeline with missing context, short context, and fake context inputs.
- Adversarial context tests: feed plausible but geographically incorrect Wikipedia extracts and verify the model does not silently blend them with training data.
- Verify bilingual enrichment behaviour when only an English extract is available versus when both extracts are present.
- Confirm the retry path is reachable when the reasoning block consumes available token budget.
Beer Generation
Generate catalog entries with style, ABV, IBU, color, aroma notes, and food pairing hints. Link beers back to breweries and cities. Keep style coverage wide enough to exercise search, sort, and category filters.
User Generation
Generate user profiles with stable names, bios, locale hints, and preference signals. Include stable IDs for downstream fixture joins. Keep output deterministic for screenshots while allowing larger randomized batches.
Check-In System
Produce timestamped check-in events between users and breweries. Use a J-curve activity profile - a small set of users accounts for most check-ins, the rest appear occasionally. Add bursty behaviour around weekends and travel periods.
Beer Ratings
Generate rating events with a strong positive skew and a long tail of lower scores. Avoid uniform distributions. Attach timestamps and user IDs so the app can compute averages, trends, and per-style comparisons.