Build an AI Travel Agent with Tools, RAG, and Streaming UIs

** Please ensure you follow laptop setup requirements below ahead of attending**

One of the trickiest parts is making sure everything set up before the session, so I’ve put together a small taster/setup repo while I finish off the final workshop materials:
https://github.com/jagreehal/ai-workshop-taster
There will be Typescript (Vercel AI SDK) and Python (PydanticAI) paths.
If you could spend a few minutes to check your setup this will save some time on the day. I’d really appreciate any feedback, especially around whether the setup instructions are clear.

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We are thrilled to welcome Jag Reehal to this month's meetup where he will host an exciting hands-on session where you'll build an AI Travel Agent with Tools, RAG, and Streaming UIs!

What we'll cover:

• How AI agents work: prompts → model → tools → decision loop
• Building tool-calling agents with the Vercel AI SDK
• Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG): grounding agents in your own data
• Streaming AI responses into a chat UI in real time

Format:
Hands-on coding workshop with 6 progressive challenges.

Each challenge builds on the last, so you can follow along at your own pace, and collaboration is encouraged.

By the end, you’ll have built a working travel planning agent that calls tools, searches a destination database, and streams responses into a chat interface.

Agenda

• 6:30–7:00pm: Pizza, drinks, setup check
• 7:00–7:10pm: Intro + local setup verification
• 7:10–8:20pm: Work through challenges (6 challenges, ~10-15 min each)
• 8:20–8:30pm: Demo, Q&A, wrap up
• Exit by 9:00pm

Prerequisites
Basic knowledge of JavaScript
Node.js 22+ installed
Basic terminal/command-line familiarity
No AI/ML experience required; we start from scratch
No web development knowledge needed (UI is pre-built)

Intended audience
Anyone who is curious about how AI agents actually work and wants hands-on experience

What to bring/install beforehand:

• A laptop with Node.js 22+ (check: node --version)
• Clone or download the workshop repo: git clone https://github.com/jreehal/ai-sdk-workshop
• Run npm install in the repo root to pre-download dependencies (optional but recommended to save time)
• Ollama installed locally (we’ll provide setup instructions, but installing ahead of time helps)
• Your favourite code editor (VS Code, JetBrains, etc.)

About Jag Reehal
Jag Reehal is an AI Engineer and open-source contributor working to make AI more accessible. They’ve built tools for AI SDK integrations and believe the best way to understand AI agents is to build one yourself.

GitHub: @jagreehal
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jag-reehal

Sponsors
Drinks and pizza will be provided, sponsored by Codurance, a global AI-first software engineering consultancy that unlocks trapped value in legacy software to align technology to business goals. Codurance's craftspeople are co-organisers of Software Crafters meetups in London, Cambridge, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Bristol. Find out more about our events here.

Thank you to our venue host The Bradfield Centre, the premier tech hub in Cambridge.