Move beyond static RAG pipelines into the era of agentic systems where language models autonomously decide what data to retrieve, when to retrieve it, and how to synthesise information across multiple sources. This advanced course teaches you to architect production-grade agentic RAG systems that handle complex multi-hop queries, real-time decision-making, and graceful degradation under uncertainty. You'll explore sophisticated retrieval strategies including adaptive chunking, multi-source orchestration, and confidence-based routing. Learn how to implement error handling patterns for hallucination prevention, manage context windows efficiently, and design systems that scale across distributed vector databases and APIs. Every lesson includes production patterns, architectural trade-offs, and edge case management. By course completion, you'll have built a fully functional agentic RAG system capable of handling enterprise-scale document retrieval, dynamic query rewriting, and intelligent fallback mechanisms.

Lessons

  1. From RAG to Agents: Architecture Fundamentals — Understanding the paradigm shift from static retrieval to dynamic decision-making systems (+120 XP)
  2. Building Adaptive Retrieval Strategies — Implementing query analysis, complexity detection, and multi-strategy routing logic (+140 XP)
  3. Multi-Source Orchestration and Intelligent Routing — Coordinating retrieval across vector databases, APIs, and structured data sources (+150 XP)
  4. Dynamic Prompting and Context Window Optimisation — Crafting intelligent prompts that adapt to retrieved context and managing token budgets (+140 XP)
  5. Hallucination Prevention and Error Handling Patterns — Detection mechanisms, confidence scoring, graceful degradation, and fallback strategies (+150 XP)
  6. Scaling Distributed Retrieval Systems — Managing distributed vector databases, caching strategies, and performance optimisation (+160 XP)
  7. Observability, Monitoring, and Debugging — Implementing comprehensive logging, tracing agent decisions, and performance metrics (+130 XP)
  8. Production Deployment and Advanced Patterns — End-to-end system design, deployment architectures, cost optimisation, and real-world case studies (+160 XP)