Technical library

Articles

Long-form AI engineering articles for systems, workflows, architecture, and production decisions.

48published articles
Oct 3, 2026latest update

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48 articles found

AI Foundations

5 articles

Retrieval & Context

11 articles
Retrieval & ContextSeptember 19, 2026

Embedding Index Lifecycle Gates for RAG Systems

Treat RAG embedding indexes as deployable artifacts with current and candidate manifests, recall regression checks, metadata validation, snapshots, restore drills, lineage, and promotion evidence.

Retrieval & ContextSeptember 12, 2026

Point-in-Time Feature Stores for Hybrid AI Decisions

Build a local Feast feature store with point-in-time training retrieval, SQLite online serving, freshness gates, and deterministic scoring for hybrid AI decisions.

Retrieval & ContextAugust 22, 2026

AI Data Contracts for RAG and Agent Context

Build a .NET data-contract pipeline that admits only fresh, owned, audience-safe, lineage-backed insurance policy documents into RAG or agent context.

Retrieval & ContextJune 6, 2026

Session Memory and Context Compaction for Production AI Agents

Treat long-running agent context as a controlled system. Pin required facts, compact old history, expire stale notes, and carry forward only what the next turn is allowed to rely on.

Retrieval & ContextMarch 21, 2026

Production Memory Architecture for AI Systems

Build a local-first memory architecture with deterministic write guardrails, bounded retrieval, context budgeting, and evidence-only answers.

Retrieval & ContextMarch 14, 2026

Deterministic Context Budgeting for Reliable LLM Prompting

Build a deterministic context budgeting pipeline that prioritizes required evidence, enforces token limits, and composes inspectable prompts.

Retrieval & ContextFebruary 28, 2026

Deterministic Semantic Retrieval with Embeddings and Vector Search

Learn the core AI pattern for semantic retrieval with embeddings as representation, deterministic vector ranking, thresholded control, and optional pgvector scaling.

Retrieval & ContextJanuary 17, 2026

Building a Local Semantic Runbook Search Engine with Ollama and Microsoft.Extensions.AI

Build a local semantic search engine for engineering runbooks using Ollama and Microsoft.Extensions.AI for deterministic retrieval.

Retrieval & ContextDecember 20, 2025

Context Engineering Fundamentals

Designing, structuring, and managing context to deliver personalized, consistent, memory-aware AI across sessions and complex workflows.

Retrieval & ContextNovember 29, 2025

Category-Aware Local RAG System using ASP.NET Core MVC, Ollama, and pgvector

Build a local, category-aware RAG system with ASP.NET Core MVC, Ollama LLMs, and PostgreSQL + pgvector for secure, context-bound enterprise Q&A.

Retrieval & ContextNovember 22, 2025

Local RAG System using Semantic Kernel, Ollama, and Qdrant

Build a C# console-based Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system leveraging Semantic Kernel, Ollama LLMs, and QDrant vector search for context-aware document Q&A.

Agents & Workflows

10 articles
Agents & WorkflowsOctober 3, 2026

Jev: A New Kind of AI Model for Typed Decisions

Build a Python expense-policy workflow that uses Jev for typed semantic decisions while deterministic code owns amounts, dates, duplicates, thresholds, audit records, and final routing.

Agents & WorkflowsJuly 4, 2026

Designing Control Loops for AI Agents

Loop engineering moves AI work from one prompt at a time to bounded control systems with triggers, gates, state, budgets, and escalation paths.

Agents & WorkflowsMay 9, 2026

Agent Interoperability with A2A and Microsoft Foundry on Azure Container Apps

A gateway that discovers, validates, and delegates to a remote specialist over A2A. Both agents run on Microsoft Foundry and deploy to Azure Container Apps from one image.

Agents & WorkflowsApril 25, 2026

Durable Agent Workflows with Policy-Bounded Execution

Build a durable local-first agent workflow in C# with narrow roles, deterministic policy-bounded execution, live runtime logs, and restart-safe state, using home repair as the concrete example.

Agents & WorkflowsApril 18, 2026

Grounded Multi-Agent Research Review with Microsoft Agent Framework

Build a grounded local-first multi-agent research workflow in C# with deterministic retrieval, narrow agent roles, structured JSON contracts, and final citation validation.

Agents & WorkflowsFebruary 21, 2026

Production-Grade AI Agents with Microsoft Agent Framework and Deterministic Guardrails

Build a local-first incident triage agent with Microsoft Agent Framework using structured workflows, deterministic policy enforcement, and explicit runtime guardrails.

Agents & WorkflowsFebruary 7, 2026

Intent Routing and Deterministic AI Control Flow

Build a local-first .NET intent router that keeps routing, tools, and safety deterministic while using embeddings only for disambiguation under controlled thresholds.

Agents & WorkflowsJanuary 10, 2026

Building a Reactive Local AI Agent with Semantic Kernel and Ollama

Build a reactive local AI agent using Semantic Kernel and Ollama for deterministic tool execution and natural language reasoning.

Agents & WorkflowsJanuary 3, 2026

Building a Modern MCP Server and Client with Ollama for Deterministic AI Workflows

Build a production-ready MCP setup in C# and .NET 9, integrating a simple time tool with Ollama for deterministic AI workflows.

Agents & WorkflowsNovember 15, 2025

Hybrid AI Workflows with Semantic Kernel

Dive into Semantic Kernel for orchestrating AI and deterministic code in hybrid workflows, with a deep dive into a sales analytics application.

Evaluation & Governance

13 articles
Evaluation & GovernanceAugust 29, 2026

Feature-Flagged AI Runtime Controls

Build a local Python runtime-control layer that uses feature flags to select model routes, prompt versions, tool authority, retrieval corpora, reasoning modes, and kill switches before an AI workflow executes.

Evaluation & GovernanceAugust 15, 2026

Chain-of-Thought Control Contracts for AI Systems

Turn chain-of-thought from a prompt habit into an AI engineering contract with private reasoning modes, visible rationales, evidence, logging policy, and evaluation checks.

Evaluation & GovernanceAugust 1, 2026

Tool Result Admission Gates for Production AI Agents

Build a Python tool-result admission gate that rejects unsafe tool output, redacts sensitive fields, packs only admitted context, and uses Microsoft Foundry for final synthesis.

Evaluation & GovernanceJuly 25, 2026

Golden Dataset Governance for AI Evaluation Systems

Build a markdown-first governance package that treats golden eval cases as controlled production assets with labeling rules, adjudication, versioning, leakage controls, and release evidence.

Evaluation & GovernanceJuly 18, 2026

Two-Layer Content Moderation Gates for AI Systems

Build a Python moderation gate that scores text with Detoxify, asks a local Ollama model for structured review when policy requires it, and keeps the final content-risk decision in deterministic code.

Evaluation & GovernanceJune 20, 2026

Prompt and Context Lineage for Reproducible AI Systems

Define a production prompt and context lineage contract that records effective model inputs, protects sensitive content, and supports evidence-based incident replay.

Evaluation & GovernanceJune 12, 2026

Human Approval Gates for High-Risk AI Actions

Build a local C# approval workflow where risky AI-proposed actions create explicit approval requests, consume scoped expiring tokens, and leave behind auditable decision records.

Evaluation & GovernanceMay 30, 2026

MCP Tool Contract Gates for AI Systems

Treat live MCP servers as versioned tool contracts. Discover live schemas, replay frozen probes, and block risky drift before promotion.

Evaluation & GovernanceMay 23, 2026

Model Upgrade Gates for AI Systems

Treat model swaps as controlled experiments: frozen evals, shadow replay, deterministic scoring, and explicit promotion gates before an AI system changes models.

Evaluation & GovernanceMay 2, 2026

Trusted Agent Operations with Least-Privilege Tools and PII-Safe Context

Build a support agent workflow in C# with trusted vs untrusted content labels, deterministic tool authorization, approval-gated sensitive actions, and redacted audit storage.

Evaluation & GovernanceApril 4, 2026

Prompt Versioning and A/B Evaluation

Build a local-first prompt experiment harness with frozen eval cases, deterministic scoring, live LM Studio execution, and evidence-based prompt promotion.

Evaluation & GovernanceJanuary 31, 2026

Evaluation, Observability, and Feedback Loops in Production AI Systems

Build an evaluation harness with telemetry and feedback loops to gate local AI releases with measurable reliability. Track quality over time, catch regressions early, and ship with clear deployment thresholds.

Evaluation & GovernanceJanuary 24, 2026

Guardrails, Constraints, and Failure Modes in Production AI Systems

Build a minimal but production-aligned guardrailed AI assistant in C# that runs fully locally using Ollama, focusing on clear boundaries, strict contracts, deterministic execution, and safe failure modes.

Runtime & Operations

4 articles

Developer Workflow

5 articles

FAQ

How the library works

What is included in the article library?

The library collects long-form technical writing from The Modern Engineer, organized around AI engineering, system design, architecture, workflows, and production decisions.

How is this different from the newsletter archive?

The newsletter archive is chronological. The article library is organized for browsing by topic, category, search, and read status.

How often are new articles added?

New writing is added as newsletter issues are published and categorized for the library.

Can I track what I have already read?

Yes. Read status is stored locally in this browser, and you can export or import your read-history data from Manage Read History.