PostgreSQL

Bypassing the Multimodal Tax: Hybrid RAG, SQL RRF & UI Telemetry - Abed Matini, Ogilvy

Jun 28, 2026 · 45:48

Abed Matini from Ogilvy demonstrates bypassing the multimodal tax by building a local-first hybrid RAG system that converts documents to clean Markdown via Docling, eliminating cloud vision token overhead. Using Ollama (Qwen 2.5 0.5B), PostgreSQL with pgvector, and raw SQL with Reciprocal Rank Fusion, he implements a FAQ assistant for an employee handbook with four chunking strategies—heading-based, paragraph, fixed 512-char with 64% overlap, and sentence-based. The system combines dense embedding vectors and sparse keyword indices (BM25) in a single query, retrieves top 2 chunks, and uses Python functions for speed and testability. Guardrails block prompt injections and out-of-scope questions before reaching the LLM, and LangFuse tracks token usage and latency. Matini argues that a small, local model and code-controlled pipelines reduce hallucination and cost while maintaining full observability.

From Chaos to Choreography: Multi-Agent Orchestration Patterns That Actually Work — Sandipan Bhaumik

Apr 8, 2026 · 26:29

Sandipan Bhaumik, Data & AI Tech Lead at Databricks, argues that scaling AI agents from one to five transforms an AI problem into a distributed systems problem, exposing teams to race conditions, stale reads, and cascading failures. He recounts a production deployment where a credit decisioning system incorrectly approved 20% of applicants because a caching layer wasn't invalidated between agents. Bhaumik presents two coordination patterns: choreography (event-driven, decentralized) for simple workflows with high autonomy, and orchestration (central coordinator) for complex workflows needing rollback and observability. He advocates for immutable state snapshots (append-only versions) and data contracts (schema validation at handoffs) to eliminate race conditions, and demonstrates failure recovery using circuit breakers and compensation (saga) patterns. The episode delivers a production-grade architecture on Databricks using LangGraph, Unity Catalog, Delta Lake, and MLflow for tracing, with code examples for state handoff and circuit breaker logic.

Real world MCPs in GitHub Copilot Agent Mode — Jon Peck, Microsoft

Jul 19, 2025 · 14:27

Jon Peck from Microsoft demonstrates how Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers enable GitHub Copilot Agent Mode to solve real-world engineering problems beyond vibe-coding. He shows a README-driven workflow where Agent Mode builds a full app from a specification, then adds MCPs for database access and GitHub operations. Specifically, he configures a PostgreSQL MCP to pull live schema and data into mock JSON for testing, and the GitHub MCP to commit changes and create pull requests automatically. He emphasizes the read-only safety of the Postgres MCP and recommends using Copilot instructions to enforce practices like change logs. The episode covers how MCPs extend Copilot's capabilities to interact with data sources, testing tools, and DevOps pipelines securely.

AI Red Teaming Agent: Azure AI Foundry — Nagkumar Arkalgud & Keiji Kanazawa, Microsoft

Jun 27, 2025 · 19:31

Keiji Kanazawa and Nagkumar Arkalgud of Microsoft present the AI Red Teaming Agent in Azure AI Foundry, arguing that adversarial testing is essential for building trustworthy AI agents. Nagkumar demonstrates the tool: it runs scans against RAG apps or models directly, using attack strategies like Caesar encoding and Base64 to simulate adversarial prompts across four risk categories (violence, hate and fairness, etc.). In a demo with GPT-4.0 with full guardrails, no attacks succeeded; switching to Phi-3 without guardrails yielded 5 out of 40 successful attacks in hate and fairness. The tool integrates with Azure AI Foundry's content filters, which apply both input and output guardrails, allowing engineers to iteratively test and mitigate vulnerabilities. The talk emphasizes that red teaming should be part of a broader risk mapping and evaluation lifecycle, and that trust is a team sport requiring collaboration between engineers and security experts.