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Web Interface

Blackfish ships with a browser-based UI served alongside the API at http://localhost:8000 (or your configured host/port). The UI and the CLI are alternative front-ends to the same API — most users will prefer the UI for interactive work (chat, model browsing, settings) and the CLI for scripting and automation.

Features

  • Services
    • Text Generation — chat or completion against a running vLLM service, with text/code file attachments as conversation context.
    • Speech Recognition — transcribe audio against a running Whisper service.
    • More services on the way.
  • Models — inventory, download, and delete models per profile.
  • Files — browse, upload, download, and delete files on a remote Slurm profile over SFTP.
  • Batch Jobs
    • Transcription — transcribe audio files using Whisper.
    • Translation — translate text files between languages.
    • Object Detection — zero-shot object detection on images.
    • OCR — extract text from images or scanned pages.
  • Settings — profile management, theme preference, and Hugging Face token management.

Walkthroughs

Launch a service

From any service page, click in the service container header to open the launcher.

  • Fill in the Service modal:
    • Name — a suggestion is pre-populated; leave it or rename.
    • Model and Revision — pick from the available list.
    • On a Slurm profile, pick a Partition, a Resource tier, and set the Time limit. Account is available under the expandable Advanced section.
  • Click Launch. The service status badge moves from PENDING → STARTING → HEALTHY. The time to reach HEALTHY depends on Slurm queue wait times and model size. Once the job starts, small models (~1B) typically load in about a minute, while large models (~70B) can take 5–10 minutes.
  • When you're done, click in the service container header. The service transitions to STOPPED; appears next to it so you can remove the record entirely.

Text Generation

Once the service is HEALTHY, the chat text area at the bottom of the page becomes active:

  • Type a message and press Enter to send (Shift+Enter for a newline).
  • Click in the toolbar to open the parameters panel — tune temperature, max tokens, presence and frequency penalties, stop sequences, and seed.
  • Click in the toolbar to open the code snippet modal, which shows the equivalent request body in Python, R, and Bash.

Speech Recognition

Once the service is HEALTHY:

  • Use the file browser to select an audio file from the service's mount directory. A preview player appears below the browser.
  • Click to set the transcription language.
  • Click the submit button to start transcription. The result appears in the output area once processing completes.

Create a batch job

Batch jobs require a Slurm profile — the Jobs page is only accessible when a Slurm profile is selected.

  • From the Jobs page, click New Job — this is a dropdown menu.
  • Pick the task you want to run: Transcription, Translation, Object Detection, or OCR.
  • The New Job modal opens as a stepper:
    1. Model — pick a model and revision.
    2. Task parameters — fields vary by task:
      • Transcription: language, output format.
      • Translation: source language, target language.
      • Object Detection: labels, threshold, batch size, sample FPS.
      • OCR: output format.
    3. Data — use the directory browser to select an input directory on the cluster and an output directory to write results to. Set the input file extension to filter inputs.
    4. Resources — pick a Partition, a Resource tier, and the maximum number of concurrent Workers. Account, worker and client timeouts are available under the expandable Advanced section.
  • Click Submit. The modal closes and the new job appears at the top of the Jobs table with a status of RUNNING.
  • The progress column shows finished/total counts as workers complete files. The job transitions to STOPPED when all files have been processed or if the job is manually stopped.
  • Click a job row to view file-level details. Each row shows the input and output file names, start time, elapsed time, and status (success or failure). Click a file row to open a side panel with a preview of the output and additional details.

Manage models

  • Open the Models page from the sidebar.
  • The table lists every model available under the selected profile, with columns for name, size, parameter count, task, and location.
  • To download a new model:
    • Click in the header.
    • A dialog asks for a repo ID (e.g. google/gemma-3-27b-it) and an optional revision (defaults to main).
    • Click Download. The model appears in the table with a status indicator while the download runs. Large models can take a significant amount of time to download.
  • To delete a model:
    • Hover the row and click the action menu.
    • Choose Delete and confirm.

Note

Model downloads and deletions are only supported for Slurm profiles with host=localhost (e.g. Open OnDemand sessions running on the cluster head node). Remote Slurm profiles display a banner explaining that model management must happen on the cluster directly.

Change settings

  • Click in the navbar to open the Settings slide-over.
  • The panel has four sections: Profiles, Hugging Face, App Configuration, and Theme.

Profiles

  • The top section lists every profile you've configured, with a badge showing the type (Slurm or Local).
  • To add a new profile:
    • Click Add Profile — a form expands inline.
    • Fill in:
      • Name — must be unique and is immutable once created.
      • Type — Slurm or Local.
      • Home directory — where Blackfish stores profile state on the target machine, e.g., /home/shamu/.blackfish.
      • Cache directory — where cached models and SIF images live, e.g., /shared/.blackfish.
      • For Slurm profiles: Host (e.g., cluster.university.edu or localhost), User (your cluster username), and an optional Python path (e.g., python3 or /usr/local/bin/python3.12) if the cluster doesn't have Python on $PATH.
    • Click Create.
  • To edit a profile: click on the row; the same form appears pre-filled with every field editable except Name.
  • To delete a profile: click . The default profile is protected and cannot be deleted.

Hugging Face

  • Click Sign In to paste a Hugging Face access token. Blackfish uses this token to download gated models.
  • Once configured, the section shows your HF username, token role, and a Sign Out button to clear the token.

Theme

  • Toggle between Light, Dark, and System. System follows your OS preference and updates live when you change it.

App Configuration

  • Read-only display of the running app's version, home directory, container provider, and debug flag.