Guide Articles

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

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Planning agent decision framework: pattern selection and validation for ReAct, Plan-and-Execute, Reflexion, and ReWOO across LangGraph, CrewAI, and AutoGen in 2026
MAX guide 15 min

Planning Agents in Practice: ReAct, Plan-and-Execute, and Reflexion

Planning agents fail when frameworks come before patterns. Match ReAct, Plan-and-Execute, Reflexion, or ReWOO to your …

Multimodal RAG pipeline diagram with PDF pages flowing into vision retrievers, embeddings, and a RAG orchestration engine.
MAX guide 15 min

Build a Multimodal RAG Pipeline with ColPali, Jina v4, RAGFlow in 2026

Multimodal RAG turns PDF pages, charts, and screenshots into searchable knowledge. Spec a 2026 stack with ColPali, Jina …

Document parsing pipeline routing PDFs through layout, extraction, and structure layers for RAG
MAX guide 15 min

How to Build a Document Parsing Pipeline with LlamaParse, Unstructured, and Docling in 2026

Build a document parsing pipeline that routes PDFs to LlamaParse, Unstructured, or Docling by complexity. A …

Specification blueprint linking entities, relationships, and vector embeddings across a graph and vector database for GraphRAG.
MAX guide 15 min

How to Build a GraphRAG Pipeline with Neo4j and LightRAG in 2026

Build a knowledge-graph RAG pipeline with Microsoft GraphRAG, Neo4j vector indexes, and LightRAG. Decompose components, …

Metadata filter contract routing a vector query through tenant, date, and permission gates before it reaches the index
MAX guide 16 min

Metadata Filtering in Qdrant, Weaviate, Milvus & Pinecone (2026)

Specification-first guide to metadata filtering in Qdrant, Weaviate, Milvus, and Pinecone — tenancy, date filters, and …

Decision framework comparing long-context window, RAG retriever, and hybrid pipeline routes for 2026 AI applications
MAX guide 15 min

Long-Context vs RAG vs Hybrid: A 2026 Decision Framework

Long-context, RAG, or hybrid? A 2026 spec-driven framework for choosing between Gemini 3.1 Pro 1M, Claude Sonnet 4.6, …

Engineer wiring a RAG evaluation harness with metrics dashboards on multiple monitors in a high-tech workspace
MAX guide 14 min

RAG Evaluation Harness with RAGAS, DeepEval, and TruLens in 2026

Build a production RAG evaluation harness with RAGAS 0.4, DeepEval 3.9, and TruLens 2.8. Spec the metrics, gate CI, …

Three retrieval lanes — BM25, learned sparse, and dense vectors — fused into a single hybrid search ranking
MAX guide 12 min

Build a Hybrid Search Pipeline: BM25, SPLADE-v3 + RRF in 2026

Vector search still misses rare terms. Here's how to architect a hybrid retrieval pipeline with BM25, SPLADE-v3, and …

Layered specification diagram for catching RAG hallucinations before they reach production users
MAX guide 15 min

RAG Hallucination Detection with Ragas, TruLens & Guardrails (2026)

Wire Ragas, TruLens, and Guardrails AI into your RAG pipeline to catch hallucinations before users see them. A …

Diagram of a contextual retrieval pipeline: chunked documents enriched with chunk-level context, dual lexical and dense indexes, late-interaction reranker, fused top-20 output
MAX guide 17 min

Build a Contextual Retrieval Pipeline: Anthropic + Voyage + ColBERT

Contextual retrieval cuts RAG retrieval failures by up to 67%. Here is the pipeline spec for 2026 — Anthropic recipe, …

Architecture diagram of an agentic RAG pipeline with hybrid search, cross-encoder rerank, and a bounded agent loop
MAX guide 16 min

How to Build Agentic RAG with LangGraph, LlamaIndex & Haystack in 2026

Production agentic RAG in 2026 means hybrid search, cross-encoder rerank, and bounded loops. Spec the pipeline before …

Three-stage RAG reranker architecture diagram: hybrid retrieval, cross-encoder reranker decision, and LLM generation in a 2026 pipeline
MAX guide 14 min

Add Reranking to Your RAG Pipeline: Cohere, Voyage, Zerank-2 in 2026

Add a reranker to your RAG pipeline in 2026. Compare Cohere Rerank 4 Pro, Voyage Rerank-2.5, Zerank-2, and self-hosted …

Decision tree for selecting a RAG query transformation: HyDE, multi-query, step-back, routing, and decomposition.
MAX guide 14 min

HyDE vs Multi-Query vs Step-Back: Choosing RAG Query Transforms

Pick the right RAG query transformation. When HyDE beats multi-query, step-back outperforms decomposition, and routing …

Query transformation pipeline diagram with router dispatching to HyDE multi-query and step-back expanders feeding hybrid retrieval and reranking
MAX guide 17 min

Query Transformation Pipeline: HyDE & LangChain v1 in 2026

Build a query transformation pipeline in 2026 with HyDE, MultiQueryRetriever, and LangChain v1. Decide when each …

Hybrid search pipeline diagram blending sparse keyword retrieval with dense vector retrieval via reciprocal rank fusion
MAX guide 15 min

How to Build a Hybrid Search Pipeline with Weaviate, Qdrant, and SPLADE in 2026

Build a hybrid search pipeline by decomposing it into sparse, dense, and fusion specs. Covers Weaviate, Qdrant, and …

Production RAG pipeline diagram with LangChain orchestrating Qdrant retrieval Cohere reranking and Ragas evaluation.
MAX guide 17 min

Production RAG with LangChain, Qdrant & Cohere Rerank in 2026

Build a production RAG pipeline in 2026 with LangChain, Qdrant hybrid retrieval, Cohere Rerank 4, and Ragas eval. Specs, …

Routing diagram of a 2026 background removal pipeline dispatching to Photoroom API, remove.bg, rembg, and BRIA RMBG-2.0 with an alpha-matte validation plane.
MAX guide 19 min

Background Removal Pipeline 2026: BRIA, Photoroom & rembg

Build a production background removal pipeline in 2026. Spec BRIA RMBG-2.0, Photoroom API, remove.bg, and rembg as …

Spec sheet comparing prompt syntax across five image generation models with parameter flags, weights, and natural language structures
MAX guide 14 min

Prompt Grammar by Model: Midjourney, SD, Flux, GPT Image, Gemini 2026

Image models speak different prompt languages. Master Midjourney parameters, SD weights, Flux JSON, and natural-language …

Image-prompt testing pipeline diagram routing across FLUX.2, Midjourney, and gpt-image-2 with seed plane and CI gate.
MAX guide 16 min

Reproducible Image-Prompt Testing 2026: Promptfoo, Seeds, A/B

Build a reproducible image-prompt testing pipeline in 2026 with Promptfoo, seeds, and A/B eval. Spec what 'reproducible' …

Side-by-side LoRA training pipelines for Flux and SDXL routing through Kohya SS, AI-Toolkit, and fal.ai cloud trainers
MAX guide 14 min

How to Train a Custom LoRA for Flux and SDXL with Kohya SS, AI-Toolkit, and fal.ai in 2026

Train custom LoRAs for Flux and SDXL with Kohya SS, AI-Toolkit, or fal.ai. Covers dataset specs, learning rates, trigger …

Diagram comparing four 2026 image upscaling pipelines: Real-ESRGAN, Magnific V2, Topaz Gigapixel, and tiled ComfyUI workflows
MAX guide 13 min

How to Upscale Images: Real-ESRGAN, Magnific V2, ComfyUI in 2026

Upscaling pipelines fail when you skip the spec. Pick between Real-ESRGAN, Magnific V2, Topaz Gigapixel, and tiled …

Three AI image editors compared for commercial marketing work — Adobe Firefly, Flux Kontext, and GPT Image decision matrix
MAX guide 15 min

Adobe Firefly vs. Flux Kontext vs. GPT Image: Decision Guide for 2026

Pick the right AI image editor for commercial work: Adobe Firefly indemnifies, Flux Kontext iterates, GPT Image follows …

Blueprint of a 2026 AI image editing pipeline with edit-type router, model backends, and drift validation stages.
MAX guide 17 min

Image Editing Pipeline 2026: Flux Kontext, Qwen Edit & GPT Image

Build a production AI image editing pipeline in 2026. Spec Flux Kontext, Qwen Image Edit, and GPT Image 1.5 as swappable …

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 …