Developing LLM Applications with LangChain

Welcome to the LangChain framework for building applications on LLMs! You'll learn about the main components of LangChain, including models, chains, agents, prompts, and parsers. You'll create chatbots using both open-source models from Hugging Face and proprietary models from OpenAI, create prompt templates, and integrate different chatbot memory strategies to manage context and resources during conversations.

One limitation of LLMs is that they have a knowledge cut-off due to being trained on data up to a certain point. In this chapter, you'll learn to create applications that use Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to integrate external data with LLMs. The RAG workflow contains a few different processes, including splitting data, creating and storing the embeddings using a vector database, and retrieving the most relevant information for use in the application. You'll learn to master the entire workflow!

Time to level up your LangChain chains! You'll learn to use the LangChain Expression Language (LCEL) for defining chains with greater flexibility. You'll create sequential chains, where inputs are passed between components to create more advanced applications. You'll also begin to integrate agents, which use LLMs for decision-making.

In the final chapter, you'll give your agents the power to do even more, by designing custom tools and functions for them to use. You'll also learn about how to troubleshoot and evaluate your application to ensure it performs well.