Week 11: Practical LLM Integration & API Development

1. API Integration Fundamentals

  • Working with LLM APIs
    • OpenAI API structure
    • Anthropic Claude API
    • Rate limits and costs
  • Prompt engineering basics
    • System prompts
    • Few-shot examples
    • Output formatting
  • Error handling
    • API failures
    • Token limits
    • Response validation

2. Systematic Prompt Development

  • Chain-of-Thought prompting
    • Breaking down complex tasks
    • Intermediate reasoning steps
    • Validation checkpoints
  • Synoptic tagging workflows
    • Entity extraction
    • Relationship identification
    • Structured output generation
  • Quality assurance
    • Output verification
    • Consistency checks
    • Edge case handling

3. Building Reliable Systems

  • Prompt templates
    • Version control for prompts
    • Template management
    • Dynamic content insertion
  • Fallback strategies
    • Multiple model approaches
    • Graceful degradation
    • Error recovery
  • Testing frameworks
    • Unit testing prompts
    • Integration testing
    • Regression testing

Required Reading

  • OpenAI API Documentation
  • "Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Models"

Learning Objectives

  • Master LLM API integration
  • Develop robust prompt engineering skills
  • Build reliable LLM-powered applications
  • Implement systematic testing approaches
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