17 posts found
Embeddings explained without the linear algebra
An embedding turns text into coordinates, and nearby coordinates mean related meaning. That single idea is what makes se...
System prompts: the instructions the user never sees
A system prompt sets the rules for everything that follows. Written well it is the cheapest quality improvement availabl...
Structured output beats parsing prose
If your code needs a value from a model, ask for JSON and validate it. Regexing an answer out of a paragraph is a bug wa...
An agent is a loop, not a personality
Strip away the branding and an agent is a small loop: call the model, run the tool it asked for, feed the result back, r...
Tool calling is an API contract the model can read
A tool definition is documentation with a schema attached. Write it for a capable colleague who has never seen your syst...
Why agents fail on long tasks
An agent that handles five steps beautifully can fall apart at twenty. The reason is rarely reasoning — it is that the c...
Giving an agent memory without giving it amnesia
Memory is not a feature you enable. It is a set of decisions about what to keep, what to summarise and what to let go —...
When a workflow beats an agent
If you already know the steps, do not ask a model to rediscover them on every request. A fixed pipeline with model calls...
What an AI agent can actually do with a design system
Given a real design system, a model stops inventing interfaces and starts assembling them. The difference is not the mod...
Design tokens are the interface AI needs
A token that only names a hex value has saved you nothing. A token that names a job tells a model which decision it is m...
Generating layouts that respect a grid
Generated layouts usually look almost right, and "almost" is where the eye catches. Most of the fix is stating the rules...
RAG in one page: retrieve, rank, answer
Retrieval-augmented generation is three steps and a lot of tuning. The architecture is simple; the quality lives almost...