diff --git a/build-api.sh b/build-api.sh
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..8198108e0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/build-api.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+# A rather convenient script for spinning up models behind screens
+
+
+# Variables
+PROJECT_DIR="$(pwd)"
+CONDA_ENV_NAME="fastchat" #
+
+MODEL_PATH="HuggingFaceH4/zephyr-7b-beta" #beta is better than the alpha version, base model w/o quantization
+MODEL_PATH="lmsys/vicuna-7b-v1.5" 
+
+API_HOST="0.0.0.0"
+API_PORT_NUMBER=8000
+
+
+# init the screens
+check_and_create_screen() {
+    local SCREENNAME="$1"
+    if screen -list | grep -q "$SCREENNAME"; then
+        echo "Screen session '$SCREENNAME' exists. Doing nothing."
+    else
+        echo "Screen session '$SCREENNAME' not found. Creating..."
+        screen -d -m -S "$SCREENNAME"
+        echo "created!"
+    fi
+}
+
+# convenience function for sending commands to named screens
+send_cmd() {
+    local SCREENNAME="$1"
+    local CMD="$2"
+    screen -DRRS $SCREENNAME -X stuff '$2 \r'
+}
+
+# hardcoded names, for baby api
+SCREENNAMES=(
+    "controller"
+    "api"
+    # Worker screens include the devices they are bound to, if 'd0' is only worker it has full GPU access
+    "worker-d0"
+    "worker-d1"
+)
+
+for screen in "${SCREENNAMES[@]}"; do
+    check_and_create_screen "$screen"
+    sleep 0.1
+    # also activate the conda compute environment for these
+    screen -DRRS "$screen" -X stuff "conda deactivate \r"
+    screen -DRRS "$screen" -X stuff "conda activate $CONDA_ENV_NAME \r"
+    
+done
+
+
+# Send Commmands on a per Screen Basis
+screen -DRRS controller -X stuff  "python3 -m fastchat.serve.controller \r"
+
+screen -DRRS worker-d0 -X stuff  "CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=0 python3 -m fastchat.serve.model_worker --model-path $MODEL_PATH  --conv-template one_shot --limit-worker-concurrency 1  \r"
+screen -DRRS worker-d1 -X stuff  "CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=1 python3 -m fastchat.serve.model_worker --model-path $MODEL_PATH --port 21003 --worker-address http://localhost:21003  --conv-template one_shot --limit-worker-concurrency 1  \r"
+
+screen -DRRS api -X stuff  "python3 -m fastchat.serve.openai_api_server --host $API_HOST --port $API_PORT_NUMBER \r"