LangChain for Production-Ready LLM Applications
Chapter 1: Advanced LangChain Architecture and Customization
LangChain Expression Language (LCEL) Internals
Asynchronous Operations and Concurrency
Customizing Core Components: LLMs, Prompts, Parsers
Advanced Output Parsing Strategies
Managing State in Complex Chains
Debugging LangChain Execution Flow
Hands-on Practical: Building a Custom Chain Component
Chapter 2: Building Sophisticated Agents and Tools
Agent Architectures: ReAct, Self-Ask, Plan-and-Execute
Developing Custom Tools for Agents
Handling Tool Errors and Agent Recovery
Multi-Agent Systems and Collaboration Patterns
Structured Tool Calling and Function Integration
Agent Execution Tracing and Analysis
Practice: Creating an Agent with Custom API Tools
Chapter 3: Advanced Memory Management Techniques
Comparing Advanced Memory Types
Implementing Persistent Memory Stores
Context Window Management Strategies
Custom Memory Module Development
Integrating Memory with Agents and Chains
Handling Memory in Asynchronous Applications
Hands-on Practical: Implementing Vector Store Memory
Chapter 4: Production-Grade Data Integration and Retrieval
Advanced Document Loading and Transformation
Vector Store Selection and Optimization at Scale
Advanced Indexing Strategies
Hybrid Search Implementation
Re-ranking and Query Transformation
Managing Data Updates and Synchronization
Practice: Building an Optimized RAG Pipeline
Chapter 5: Evaluation, Monitoring, and Observability
Introduction to LangSmith for Production
Defining Custom Evaluation Metrics
Automated Evaluation Pipelines
Using LangSmith for Debugging and Root Cause Analysis
Monitoring Application Performance and Cost
Integrating with Third-Party Observability Platforms
Human-in-the-Loop Feedback and Annotation
Practice: Evaluating an Agent with LangSmith
Chapter 6: Optimizing and Scaling LangChain Applications
Identifying Performance Bottlenecks
LLM Call Optimization Techniques
Cost Management and Token Usage Tracking
Scaling Data Retrieval Systems
Handling High Concurrency and Throughput
Batch Processing for Offline Tasks
Practice: Performance Tuning a LangChain Chain
Chapter 7: Deployment Strategies for Production
Structuring LangChain Projects for Deployment
Containerizing LangChain Applications with Docker
Deployment Options: Servers, Kubernetes, Serverless
Serverless Deployment Patterns for LangChain
Managing Environment Variables and Secrets
Setting Up CI/CD Pipelines
Blue/Green and Canary Deployment Strategies
Hands-on Practical: Deploying a LangChain App via Docker
Chapter 8: Security Considerations in LangChain Applications
Understanding Attack Vectors in LLM Applications
Input Validation and Sanitization
Mitigating Prompt Injection Risks
Secure Output Handling and Parsing
Securing Custom Tools and API Interactions
Data Privacy and Handling Sensitive Information
Dependency Security Management
Practice: Implementing Input Validation
Developing Custom Tools for Agents
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- Custom Tools, LangChain Authors, 2024 (LangChain) - Provides practical guidance for building custom tools within the LangChain framework, covering classes, decorators, and structured inputs.
- Function calling, OpenAI, 2024 (OpenAI) - Clarifies how large language models interact with external functions, offering context for the design and description of tools for agents.
- Pydantic Documentation, Samuel Colvin and Pydantic contributors, 2024 (Pydantic) - Official documentation for defining data models and validating structured inputs in Python, a method employed for tool argument schemas.
- Toolformer: Language Models That Can Use Tools, Timo Schick, Jane Dwivedi-Yu, Roberto Dessì, Roberta Raileanu, Maria Lomeli, Luke Zettlemoyer, Nicola Cancedda, Thomas Scialom, 2023 arXiv DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2302.04761 - A research paper demonstrating how large language models can learn to use external tools through self-supervised training, forming a basis for agent tool interaction.