We're going to build a command-line Topic Explainer that takes any subject and breaks it down for a chosen audience, from absolute beginner to expert. This is a solid first project if you are just getting started with LLMs because it teaches system prompts, message history, and streaming in one small script. I have shipped dozens of these internal tools, and this is the exact pattern I reach for first.

What you'll need

Python 3.10 or newer.

The OpenAI SDK: pip install openai

An Oxlo.ai API key from https://portal.oxlo.ai . The free tier includes 60 requests per day across 16 models, which is plenty for this tutorial.

Step 1: Send your first prompt

Before we add any abstractions, we will wire up the Oxlo.ai client and make a single chat completion to verify the endpoint and credentials.…