LLMOps & Performance

Running AI in production — deployment, scaling, latency optimization, cost management, and operational best practices.

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 …

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 …

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, …

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, …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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, …

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 …

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, …

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 …

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 …