diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 471cf90d5..c96dc91af 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ models-mnt
 /infill
 /libllama.so
 /llama-bench
-/llava
+/llava-cli
 /main
 /metal
 /perplexity
diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index 6af42a6c2..58547b6d5 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -793,6 +793,7 @@ endif()
 #
 
 add_subdirectory(common)
+add_subdirectory(llava)
 
 if (LLAMA_BUILD_TESTS AND NOT CMAKE_JS_VERSION)
     include(CTest)
diff --git a/common/CMakeLists.txt b/common/CMakeLists.txt
index fbb0ff095..ac4ce0958 100644
--- a/common/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/common/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 set(TARGET common)
 
 add_library(${TARGET} OBJECT
+    base64.hpp
     common.h
     common.cpp
     sampling.h
diff --git a/examples/llava/CMakeLists.txt b/examples/llava/CMakeLists.txt
index d451690ad..6b41d157e 100644
--- a/examples/llava/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/examples/llava/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,16 +1,3 @@
-set(TARGET llava)
-add_library(${TARGET} llava.cpp llava.h clip.cpp clip.h)
-install(TARGETS ${TARGET} LIBRARY)
-target_link_libraries(${TARGET} PRIVATE common llama ${CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT})
-target_compile_features(${TARGET} PRIVATE cxx_std_11)
-if (NOT MSVC)
-    target_compile_options(${TARGET} PRIVATE -Wno-cast-qual) # stb_image.h
-    endif()
-if(TARGET BUILD_INFO)
-    add_dependencies(${TARGET} BUILD_INFO)
-endif()
-
-
 set(TARGET llava-cli)
 add_executable(${TARGET} llava-cli.cpp)
 install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
@@ -19,6 +6,3 @@ target_compile_features(${TARGET} PRIVATE cxx_std_11)
 if(TARGET BUILD_INFO)
     add_dependencies(${TARGET} BUILD_INFO)
 endif()
-
-unset(TARGET)
-llama_build_and_test_executable(test-llava.cpp)
diff --git a/examples/llava/llava-cli.cpp b/examples/llava/llava-cli.cpp
index 84c376246..173c2d938 100644
--- a/examples/llava/llava-cli.cpp
+++ b/examples/llava/llava-cli.cpp
@@ -32,7 +32,11 @@ static bool load_image(llava_context * ctx_llava, gpt_params * params, float **i
             return false;
         }
     }
-    llava_build_img_embed(ctx_llava, params->n_threads, &img, image_embd, n_image_pos);
+    bool image_embed_result = llava_build_img_embed(ctx_llava->ctx_llama, ctx_llava->ctx_clip, params->n_threads, &img, image_embd, n_image_pos);
+    if (!image_embed_result) {
+        fprintf(stderr, "%s: coulnd't embed the image\n", __func__);
+        return false;
+    }
 
     return true;
 }
diff --git a/llava/CMakeLists.txt b/llava/CMakeLists.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..9f9f8871d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/llava/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+set(TARGET llava)
+
+add_library(${TARGET} llava.cpp llava.h clip.cpp clip.h)
+
+target_include_directories(${TARGET} PUBLIC .)
+target_link_libraries(${TARGET} PRIVATE common llama ${CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT})
+target_compile_features(${TARGET} PRIVATE cxx_std_11)
+if (NOT MSVC)
+    target_compile_options(${TARGET} PRIVATE -Wno-cast-qual) # stb_image.h
+    endif()
+if(TARGET BUILD_INFO)
+    add_dependencies(${TARGET} BUILD_INFO)
+endif()
diff --git a/examples/llava/clip.cpp b/llava/clip.cpp
similarity index 100%
rename from examples/llava/clip.cpp
rename to llava/clip.cpp
diff --git a/examples/llava/clip.h b/llava/clip.h
similarity index 100%
rename from examples/llava/clip.h
rename to llava/clip.h
diff --git a/examples/llava/llava-utils.h b/llava/llava-utils.h
similarity index 100%
rename from examples/llava/llava-utils.h
rename to llava/llava-utils.h
diff --git a/examples/llava/llava.cpp b/llava/llava.cpp
similarity index 83%
rename from examples/llava/llava.cpp
rename to llava/llava.cpp
index 522334c7c..a20d34bfa 100644
--- a/examples/llava/llava.cpp
+++ b/llava/llava.cpp
@@ -10,8 +10,7 @@
 
 #include "base64.hpp"
 
-static bool encode_image_with_clip(llava_context * ctx_llava, int n_threads, const clip_image_u8 * img, float * image_embd, int * n_img_embd, int * n_img_pos) {
-    auto ctx_clip = ctx_llava->ctx_clip;
+static bool encode_image_with_clip(clip_ctx * ctx_clip, int n_threads, const clip_image_u8 * img, float * image_embd, int * n_img_embd, int * n_img_pos) {
     clip_image_f32 img_res;
     if (!clip_image_preprocess(ctx_clip, img, &img_res, /*pad2square =*/ true)) {
         fprintf(stderr, "%s: unable to preprocess image\n", __func__);
@@ -22,14 +21,6 @@ static bool encode_image_with_clip(llava_context * ctx_llava, int n_threads, con
     *n_img_pos = clip_n_patches(ctx_clip);
     *n_img_embd = clip_n_mmproj_embd(ctx_clip);
 
-    // make sure that the correct mmproj was used, i.e., compare apples to apples
-    int n_llama_embd = llama_n_embd(llama_get_model(ctx_llava->ctx_llama));
-    if (*n_img_embd != n_llama_embd) {
-        printf("%s: embedding dim of the multimodal projector (%d) is not equal to that of LLaMA (%d). Make sure that you use the correct mmproj file.\n", __func__, *n_img_embd, n_llama_embd);
-
-        return false;
-    }
-
     const int64_t t_img_enc_start_us = ggml_time_us();
     if (!clip_image_encode(ctx_clip, n_threads, &img_res, image_embd)) {
         fprintf(stderr, "Unable to encode image\n");
@@ -46,9 +37,8 @@ static bool encode_image_with_clip(llava_context * ctx_llava, int n_threads, con
     return true;
 }
 
-bool llava_build_img_embed(struct llava_context * ctx_llava, int n_threads, const clip_image_u8 * img, float ** image_embd_out, int * n_image_pos_out) {
+bool llava_build_img_embed(const llama_context * ctx_llama, clip_ctx * ctx_clip, int n_threads, const clip_image_u8 * img, float ** image_embd_out, int * n_image_pos_out) {
 
-    auto ctx_clip = ctx_llava->ctx_clip;
     float * image_embd = (float *)malloc(clip_embd_nbytes(ctx_clip));
     if (!image_embd) {
         fprintf(stderr, "Unable to allocate memory for image embeddings\n");
@@ -58,13 +48,22 @@ bool llava_build_img_embed(struct llava_context * ctx_llava, int n_threads, cons
 
     int n_image_pos;
     int n_img_embd;
-    if (!encode_image_with_clip(ctx_llava, n_threads, img, image_embd, &n_img_embd, &n_image_pos)) {
+    if (!encode_image_with_clip(ctx_clip, n_threads, img, image_embd, &n_img_embd, &n_image_pos)) {
         fprintf(stderr, "%s: cannot encode image, aborting\n", __func__);
         free(image_embd);
         return false;
     }
+    // make sure that the correct mmproj was used, i.e., compare apples to apples
+    int n_llama_embd = llama_n_embd(llama_get_model(ctx_llama));
+    if (n_img_embd != n_llama_embd) {
+        printf("%s: embedding dim of the multimodal projector (%d) is not equal to that of LLaMA (%d). Make sure that you use the correct mmproj file.\n", __func__, n_img_embd, n_llama_embd);
+        free(image_embd);
+        return false;
+    }
+
     *image_embd_out = image_embd;
     *n_image_pos_out = n_image_pos;
+
     return true;
 }
 
@@ -102,16 +101,15 @@ struct llava_context * llava_init(gpt_params * params) {
         return NULL;
     }
 
-
     auto ctx_llava = (struct llava_context *)malloc(sizeof(llava_context));
 
     ctx_llava->ctx_llama = ctx_llama;
     ctx_llava->ctx_clip = ctx_clip;
     ctx_llava->model = model;
     return ctx_llava;
-
 }
 
+
 void llava_free(struct llava_context * ctx_llava) {
     if (ctx_llava->ctx_clip) {
         clip_free(ctx_llava->ctx_clip);
diff --git a/examples/llava/llava.h b/llava/llava.h
similarity index 57%
rename from examples/llava/llava.h
rename to llava/llava.h
index 1d8b87a46..a7789ad36 100644
--- a/examples/llava/llava.h
+++ b/llava/llava.h
@@ -19,7 +19,8 @@ struct llava_context {
 struct llava_context * llava_init(gpt_params * params);
 void llava_free(struct llava_context * ctx_llava);
 
-bool llava_build_img_embed(struct llava_context * ctx_llava, int n_threads, const clip_image_u8 * img, float ** image_embd_out, int * n_image_pos_out);
+/** build a llava image embedding from the passed-in clip image `img`. result is returned as image_embd_out, size n_image_pos_out */
+bool llava_build_img_embed(const struct llama_context * ctx_llama, struct clip_ctx * ctx_clip, int n_threads, const clip_image_u8 * img, float ** image_embd_out, int * n_image_pos_out);
 
 
 #ifdef __cplusplus