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Type something here to start your search.
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The agent uses the MongoDB database to perform a vector search and obtain the results closest to the query.
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Filter out crazy searches or ones that don't apply to the database (in this case, a house at the South Pole!).
Itaca Rental Location Search
So here's what we're building - it's called Itaca, and basically it's a search tool for short-term rentals. You know how sometimes you're looking for a place to stay and you want to search by different things? Maybe you're thinking "I need a cozy cabin" or "where's that place called The Blue House I heard about?" or just "show me what's available in downtown Portland." That's exactly what this does.
The idea is pretty straightforward - you type in whatever you're looking for, and it figures out what you mean and shows you the rentals that match. Whether you're searching by the type of place (like "apartment with a view"), a specific rental name, or just an area you want to stay in, it should find what you need.
Technical Aspects
We're keeping things pretty clean on the technical side. The backend runs on Rust because it's fast and reliable, and we're using MongoDB with Atlas Search for vector search capabilities - this lets us do smart matching based on the meaning of your search terms, not just exact keywords. Everything is deployed on Google Cloud using Cloud Run, which gives us good scalability without the hassle.
On the frontend, it's JavaScript with Vue.js - nothing too fancy, just a nice clean interface that does what it needs to do. And I also use Model Context Protocol (MCP) for communication between the LLM and backend.
When it comes to choosing an LLM model, I'm leaning towards Gemini 2.5 Flash due to its impressive results and rapid response times. The database I employed is called MongoDB/airbnb_embeddings, and it facilitates searching using vectors.
The whole point is to make finding short-term rentals less of a headache. Instead of having to think like a computer when you search, you can just type what you're actually looking for and let the system figure out the rest.
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