Category: Technology Engineering

Introduction: Retrieval is the foundation of RAG systems—the quality of retrieved documents directly impacts generation quality. Different retrieval strategies excel in different scenarios: dense retrieval captures semantic similarity, sparse retrieval handles exact keyword matches, and hybrid approaches combine both. This guide covers advanced retrieval techniques: embedding-based dense retrieval, BM25 and sparse methods, hybrid search strategies,… Continue reading

Introduction: LLM API costs can spiral quickly—a chatbot handling 10,000 daily users at $0.01 per conversation costs $3,000 monthly. Production systems need cost optimization without sacrificing quality. This guide covers practical strategies: semantic caching to avoid redundant calls, model routing to use cheaper models when possible, prompt compression to reduce token counts, and monitoring to… Continue reading

Introduction: Evaluating LLM outputs is challenging because there’s often no single “correct” answer. Traditional metrics like BLEU and ROUGE fall short for open-ended generation. This guide covers modern evaluation approaches: automated metrics for specific tasks, LLM-as-judge for quality assessment, human evaluation frameworks, A/B testing in production, and building comprehensive evaluation pipelines. These techniques help you… Continue reading

Introduction: Streaming responses dramatically improve perceived latency in LLM applications. Instead of waiting seconds for a complete response, users see tokens appear in real-time, creating a more engaging experience. Implementing streaming correctly requires understanding Server-Sent Events (SSE), handling partial tokens, managing connection lifecycle, and gracefully handling errors mid-stream. This guide covers practical streaming patterns: basic… Continue reading

Introduction: Semantic search using embeddings has transformed how we find information. Unlike keyword search, embeddings capture meaning—finding documents about “machine learning” when you search for “AI training.” This guide covers building production embedding search systems: choosing embedding models, computing and storing vectors efficiently, implementing similarity search with various distance metrics, and optimizing for speed and… Continue reading

Introduction: Effective conversational AI requires more than just calling an LLM—it needs thoughtful conversation design. This includes managing multi-turn context, handling user intent, graceful error recovery, and maintaining consistent personality. This guide covers essential conversation patterns: intent classification and routing, slot filling for structured data collection, conversation state machines, context window management, and building chatbots… Continue reading

Introduction: Prompt engineering has emerged as one of the most critical skills in the AI era. The difference between a mediocre AI response and an exceptional one often comes down to how you structure your prompt. After years of working with large language models across production systems, I’ve distilled the most effective techniques into this… Continue reading

Introduction: LLM API calls are expensive and slow. Caching is your first line of defense against runaway costs and latency. But caching LLM responses isn’t straightforward—the same question phrased differently should return the same cached answer. This guide covers caching strategies for LLM applications: exact match caching for deterministic queries, semantic caching using embeddings for… Continue reading

Introduction: LLM APIs have strict rate limits—requests per minute, tokens per minute, and concurrent request limits. Exceeding these limits results in 429 errors that can cascade through your application. Effective rate limiting on your side prevents hitting API limits, provides fair access across users, and enables graceful degradation under load. This guide covers practical rate… Continue reading