LangChain is an open-source Python library for connecting language models with prompts, APIs, memory stores, and other components. It reduces integration work when prototyping applications such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). section 3.4.1
LangChain provides building blocks for:
- Formatting task inputs with prompt templates. section 3.4.1
- Connecting to language models and external APIs. section 3.4.1
- Tracking conversation context with memory stores and composing components into pipelines. section 3.4.1
- Loading documents and splitting text for RAG workflows. section 3.4.1
For an initial RAG implementation, LangChain can serve as a helper toolkit for common tasks rather than a framework that dictates the whole design. More advanced retrieval chains and question-answering systems are possible, but are beyond this basic use. section 3.4.1
!pip install -q langchain langchain-community langchain-text-splitters langchain-huggingface langchain-classic torch transformers sentence-transformers datasets faiss-cpu
Installation command for LangChain and supporting RAG libraries. section 3.8.1
