Nemo Agent Toolkit simplifies building production-ready LLM applications by providing tools for creating, managing, and deploying agents. It offers features like memory management, tool usage, and observability, making it easier to integrate LLMs into real-world applications.
This article details the steps to move a Large Language Model (LLM) from a prototype to a production-ready system, covering aspects like observability, evaluation, cost management, and scalability.
LLMs are powerful for understanding user input and generating human‑like text, but they are not reliable arbiters of logic. A production‑grade system should:
- Isolate the LLM to language tasks only.
- Put all business rules and tool orchestration in deterministic code.
- Validate every step with automated tests and logging.
- Prefer local models for sensitive domains like healthcare.
| **Issue** | **What users observed** | **Common solutions** |
|-----------|------------------------|----------------------|
| **Hallucinations & false assumptions** | LLMs often answer without calling the required tool, e.g., claiming a doctor is unavailable when the calendar shows otherwise. | Move decision‑making out of the model. Let the code decide and use the LLM only for phrasing or clarification. |
| **Inconsistent tool usage** | Models agree to user requests, then later report the opposite (e.g., confirming an appointment but actually scheduling none). | Enforce deterministic tool calls first, then let the LLM format the result. Use “always‑call‑tool‑first” guards in the prompt. |
| **Privacy concerns** | Sending patient data to cloud APIs is risky. | Prefer self‑hosted/local models (e.g., LLaMA, Qwen) or keep all data on‑premises. |
| **Prompt brittleness** | Adding more rules can make prompts unstable; models still improvise. | Keep prompts short, give concrete examples, and test with a structured evaluation pipeline. |
| **Evaluation & monitoring** | Without systematic “evals,” failures go unnoticed. | Build automated test suites (e.g., with LangChain, LangGraph, or custom eval scripts) that verify correct tool calls and output formats. |
| **Workflow design** | Treat the LLM as a *translator* rather than a *decision engine*. | • Extract intent → produce a JSON/action spec → execute deterministic code → have the LLM produce a user‑friendly response. <br>• Cache common replies to avoid unnecessary model calls. |
| **Alternative UI** | Many suggest a simple button‑driven interface for scheduling. | Use the LLM only for natural‑language front‑end; the back‑end remains a conventional, rule‑based system. |
- Isolate the LLM to language tasks only.
- Put all business rules and tool orchestration in deterministic code.
- Validate every step with automated tests and logging.
- Prefer local models for sensitive domains like healthcare.
| **Issue** | **What users observed** | **Common solutions** |
|-----------|------------------------|----------------------|
| **Hallucinations & false assumptions** | LLMs often answer without calling the required tool, e.g., claiming a doctor is unavailable when the calendar shows otherwise. | Move decision‑making out of the model. Let the code decide and use the LLM only for phrasing or clarification. |
| **Inconsistent tool usage** | Models agree to user requests, then later report the opposite (e.g., confirming an appointment but actually scheduling none). | Enforce deterministic tool calls first, then let the LLM format the result. Use “always‑call‑tool‑first” guards in the prompt. |
| **Privacy concerns** | Sending patient data to cloud APIs is risky. | Prefer self‑hosted/local models (e.g., LLaMA, Qwen) or keep all data on‑premises. |
| **Prompt brittleness** | Adding more rules can make prompts unstable; models still improvise. | Keep prompts short, give concrete examples, and test with a structured evaluation pipeline. |
| **Evaluation & monitoring** | Without systematic “evals,” failures go unnoticed. | Build automated test suites (e.g., with LangChain, LangGraph, or custom eval scripts) that verify correct tool calls and output formats. |
| **Workflow design** | Treat the LLM as a *translator* rather than a *decision engine*. | • Extract intent → produce a JSON/action spec → execute deterministic code → have the LLM produce a user‑friendly response. <br>• Cache common replies to avoid unnecessary model calls. |
| **Alternative UI** | Many suggest a simple button‑driven interface for scheduling. | Use the LLM only for natural‑language front‑end; the back‑end remains a conventional, rule‑based system. |
OpenInference is a set of conventions and plugins that complements OpenTelemetry to enable tracing of AI applications, with native support from arize-phoenix and compatibility with other OpenTelemetry-compatible backends.
The article introduces the LLMOps Database, a curated collection of over 300 real-world Generative AI implementations, focusing on practical challenges and solutions in deploying large language models in production environments. It highlights the importance of sharing technical insights and best practices to bridge the gap between theoretical discussions and practical implementation.
A list of 13 open-source software for building and managing production-ready AI applications. The tools cover various aspects of AI development, including LLM tool integration, vector databases, RAG pipelines, model training and deployment, LLM routing, data pipelines, AI agent monitoring, LLM observability, and AI app development.
1. Composio - Seamless integration of tools with LLMs.
2. Weaviate - AI-native vector database for AI apps.
3. Haystack - Framework for building efficient RAG pipelines.
4. LitGPT - Pretrain, fine-tune, and deploy models at scale.
5. DsPy - Framework for programming LLMs.
6. Portkey's Gateway - Reliably route to 200+ LLMs with one API.
7. AirByte - Reliable and extensible open-source data pipeline.
8. AgentOps - Agents observability and monitoring.
9. ArizeAI's Phoenix - LLM observability and evaluation.
10. vLLM - Easy, fast, and cheap LLM serving for everyone.
11. Vercel AI SDK - Easily build AI-powered products.
12. LangGraph - Build language agents as graphs.
13. Taipy - Build AI apps in Python.
1. Composio - Seamless integration of tools with LLMs.
2. Weaviate - AI-native vector database for AI apps.
3. Haystack - Framework for building efficient RAG pipelines.
4. LitGPT - Pretrain, fine-tune, and deploy models at scale.
5. DsPy - Framework for programming LLMs.
6. Portkey's Gateway - Reliably route to 200+ LLMs with one API.
7. AirByte - Reliable and extensible open-source data pipeline.
8. AgentOps - Agents observability and monitoring.
9. ArizeAI's Phoenix - LLM observability and evaluation.
10. vLLM - Easy, fast, and cheap LLM serving for everyone.
11. Vercel AI SDK - Easily build AI-powered products.
12. LangGraph - Build language agents as graphs.
13. Taipy - Build AI apps in Python.
This article showcases 15 real-world examples of companies using Large Language Models (LLMs) in various industries, such as Netflix, Picnic, Uber, GitLab, LinkedIn, Swiggy, Careem, Slack, Picnic, Foodpanda, Etsy, LinkedIn, Discord, Pinterest, and Expedia.
A research team introduces Super Tiny Language Models (STLMs) to address the resource-intensive nature of large language models, providing high performance with significantly reduced parameter counts.
