Guide Articles

Step-by-step guides and tutorials for AI tools, frameworks, and implementations. Practical how-to content for developers and practitioners.

  • Home /
  • Guide Articles
Diagram of a diffusion pipeline showing U-Net denoising, LoRA adapter, and Flux.2 flow-matching deployment stages
MAX guide 14 min

How to Build, Fine-Tune, and Deploy Diffusion Models with Diffusers, ComfyUI, and LoRA in 2026

Build, fine-tune, and deploy diffusion models in 2026 — spec the four surfaces that separate stable Flux.2 and SD 3.5 …

Blueprint of a 2026 multimodal AI pipeline with vision encoder, MLP connector, and LLM backbone layers.
MAX guide 13 min

Multimodal Pipeline 2026: LLaVA, Llama 3.2 Vision & Gemini 3.1 Pro

Architect a multimodal AI pipeline in 2026. Compare Gemini 3.1 Pro, LLaVA-OneVision, and Llama 3.2 Vision by encoder, …

Engineer plotting hybrid state space model layer stacks across GPU memory budgets for long-context fine-tuning
MAX guide 15 min

How to Build and Fine-Tune State Space Models with Mamba-3, Jamba, and Nemotron-H in 2026

Build and fine-tune state space models with Mamba-3, Jamba, and Nemotron-H. Architecture mapping, install contracts, and …

Patch-grid decision map for picking and fine-tuning a 2026 Vision Transformer backbone with Hugging Face and PyTorch
MAX guide 13 min

How to Fine-Tune SigLIP 2, DINOv2, and ViT Backbones with Hugging Face and PyTorch in 2026

Pick the right Vision Transformer backbone for 2026. Spec-first guide to fine-tuning SigLIP 2, DINOv2, and ViT with …

Engineer mapping GPU cluster topology for sparse expert routing across distributed nodes
MAX guide 12 min

How to Run and Fine-Tune Open-Weight MoE Models with DeepSeek-V3, Mixtral, and Llama 4 in 2026

Deploy and fine-tune open-weight MoE models like DeepSeek-V3, Mixtral 8x22B, and Llama 4. Hardware mapping, expert …

Technical blueprint mapping GNN pipeline components from graph data through message passing to node prediction
MAX guide 11 min

How to Build a Graph Neural Network with PyTorch Geometric and DGL in 2026

Specify graph neural networks for AI-assisted development. Covers PyTorch Geometric and DGL decomposition, data …

Encoder-decoder architecture with a gaussian sampling bottleneck connecting compressed input to reconstructed output
MAX guide 12 min

How to Build a VAE in PyTorch and Apply It to Anomaly Detection and Data Augmentation in 2026

Build a variational autoencoder in PyTorch 2.11 the specification-first way. Decompose, specify, and validate your VAE …

Technical diagram showing generator and discriminator networks locked in an adversarial training loop inside a PyTorch pipeline
MAX guide 12 min

How to Build a GAN with PyTorch and Apply It to Super-Resolution and Synthetic Data in 2026

Build a GAN in PyTorch by decomposing the architecture into generator, discriminator, and training loop specs. Covers …

Blueprint-style diagram of an LSTM cell with labeled gates overlaid on a temporal signal processing flow
MAX guide 12 min

How to Build an LSTM in PyTorch and Where RNNs Still Outperform Transformers in 2026

Learn when LSTMs beat transformers in 2026 — edge deployment, anomaly detection, time series — and how to specify an …

CNN pipeline diagram from feature extraction through architecture selection to classifier output
MAX guide 11 min

PyTorch CNN: EfficientNetV2 vs ResNet vs ConvNeXt (2026)

Evaluate EfficientNetV2, ResNet, and ConvNeXt. Get a clear decision framework to choose the right PyTorch model for your …

Layered architecture diagram showing tensor shapes flowing between embedding, hidden, and output layers of a neural network
MAX guide 12 min

How to Build a Neural Network Language Model from Scratch with PyTorch in 2026

Decompose a neural network language model into four specification layers for AI-assisted development. Covers …

Engineer reviewing benchmark comparison dashboards across multiple LLM evaluation frameworks
MAX guide 12 min

How to Benchmark LLMs with lm-evaluation-harness, HELM, and OpenCompass in 2026

Choose the right LLM evaluation harness — lm-evaluation-harness, HELM, or OpenCompass — with a spec-first workflow for …

Engineer examining benchmark scores through a magnifying glass revealing hidden training data underneath
MAX guide 12 min

How to Detect and Prevent Benchmark Contamination with CoDeC, CCV, and LiveBench in 2026

Detect benchmark contamination in LLMs using CoDeC, CCV, and LiveBench. A step-by-step workflow for auditing evaluations …

Engineer examining a neural network diagram with components being selectively removed and measured
MAX guide 12 min

How to Design and Run Rigorous Ablation Experiments with ABLATOR, W&B Sweeps, and PyTorch in 2026

Design rigorous ablation experiments with ABLATOR, W&B Sweeps, and PyTorch 2.11. Specify, isolate, and prove which of …

Terminal screen displaying MMLU benchmark evaluation results alongside score comparison charts across model categories
MAX guide 11 min

How to Run MMLU Evaluation and Interpret Benchmark Scores for Model Selection in 2026

Run MMLU and MMLU-Pro evaluations correctly, avoid common configuration mistakes, and interpret benchmark scores to …

Confusion matrix evaluation pipeline connecting scikit-learn, TorchMetrics, and Weights and Biases for model debugging
MAX guide 11 min

Confusion Matrices: scikit-learn, TorchMetrics & W&B (2026)

Specify, build, and validate confusion matrix pipelines with scikit-learn 1.8, TorchMetrics 1.9, and Weights & Biases …

Diagnostic dashboard showing precision recall and F1 score evaluation across classification experiments
MAX guide 11 min

How to Calculate and Tune Precision, Recall, and F1 Score with scikit-learn and TorchMetrics in 2026

Specify precision, recall, and F1 score evaluation in scikit-learn 1.8 and TorchMetrics 1.9. A framework to prevent …

Diagnostic dashboard comparing fairness metrics across protected groups with pass-fail indicators and bias detection alerts
MAX guide 12 min

How to Audit ML Models for Bias Using AI Fairness 360, Fairlearn, and What-If Tool in 2026

Audit ML models for bias with AI Fairness 360, Fairlearn, and What-If Tool. Specification framework for fairness …

Layered safety evaluation architecture with classifier gates, taxonomy contracts, and adversarial test harness
MAX guide 13 min

AI Safety Evaluation: Llama Guard, Perspective API, promptfoo 2026

Production AI safety pipeline with Llama Guard 4, ShieldGemma, and promptfoo. Covers taxonomy design, model evaluation, …

Evaluation dashboard displaying metric layers with test results and production trace visualization
MAX guide 12 min

How to Evaluate LLMs for Your Use Case with DeepEval, Langfuse, and Custom Benchmarks in 2026

Build an LLM evaluation pipeline with DeepEval, Langfuse, and Promptfoo. Covers metrics selection, production tracing, …

Engineer examining a layered detection pipeline with verification checkpoints highlighted on a diagnostic interface
MAX guide 12 min

How to Detect and Reduce LLM Hallucinations with DeepEval, RAGAS, and RAG Grounding in 2026

Build a hallucination detection pipeline with DeepEval, RAGAS, and RAG grounding checks. Step-by-step framework for …

Technical deployment diagram showing three inference engines processing batched requests through GPU memory
MAX guide 12 min

How to Deploy Continuous Batching with vLLM, TensorRT-LLM, and SGLang in 2026

Deploy continuous batching with vLLM, TensorRT-LLM, or SGLang using a parameter-by-parameter framework. Covers engine …

Technical control panel with precision dials adjusting LLM output diversity across sampling parameter ranges
MAX guide 11 min

How to Choose and Configure Temperature, Top-P, and Min-P for Every LLM Use Case in 2026

Configure temperature, top-p, and min-p for code generation, creative writing, and RAG pipelines across OpenAI, …

Production inference server dashboard showing latency curves and throughput metrics across a GPU cluster
MAX guide 12 min

How to Deploy and Optimize LLM Inference with vLLM, TensorRT-LLM, and SGLang in 2026

Deploy production LLM inference with vLLM, TensorRT-LLM, or SGLang. Covers workload profiling, engine selection, FP8 …

Decision flowchart mapping LLM quantization formats to GPU and CPU hardware deployment targets
MAX guide 11 min

How to Quantize and Deploy LLMs with AWQ, GGUF, and vLLM on Any Hardware in 2026

Choose the right LLM quantization format for your hardware. AWQ, GPTQ, and GGUF compared — plus current vLLM and …

Three-layer red team pipeline diagram with vulnerability scanner, attack orchestrator, and probe detector converging on a
MAX guide 12 min

How to Red Team an LLM with Promptfoo, PyRIT, and Garak in 2026

Build an LLM red teaming pipeline with Promptfoo, PyRIT, and Garak. Map attack surfaces, run multi-turn tests, and score …

Technical blueprint showing reward model training pipeline with data flowing from preference pairs through evaluation gates
MAX guide 12 min

How to Train and Evaluate a Reward Model with OpenRLHF, TRL, and RewardBench 2 in 2026

Train a reward model using TRL or OpenRLHF, then evaluate with RewardBench 2. Spec-first guide covering architecture, …

Technical blueprint showing compute budget allocation curves splitting between model size and training token count
MAX guide 11 min

How to Apply Scaling Laws and Chinchilla-Optimal Ratios to LLM Training Decisions in 2026

Apply scaling laws and Chinchilla-optimal ratios to real LLM training decisions. Compute budgeting, model sizing, and …

Technical diagram showing the four stages of an RLHF training pipeline with reward model and policy optimization loops
MAX guide 12 min

How to Train a Language Model with RLHF Using OpenRLHF and TRL in 2026

Decompose, specify, and validate a full RLHF training pipeline with OpenRLHF and TRL in 2026. Covers SFT, reward …

Distributed GPU cluster diagram showing tensor and pipeline parallelism layers during language model pre-training
MAX guide 13 min

How to Pre-Train a Language Model with Megatron-LM, DeepSpeed, and NeMo in 2026

Pre-train a language model using Megatron-LM, DeepSpeed, and Megatron Bridge in 2026. Specification-first guide to …