Jason Haley

Ramblings from an Independent Consultant

Agentic RAG Chronicles

Introducing: The Agentic RAG Chronicles (Blog Series) Last year I chronicled several RAG Demos with the idea I would have a documented place to return to when I was looking for specify RAG features. Having those demos documented and all the reference links in one location really was useful for me - so I am going to do the same thing this year, but with Agentic RAG components. Agentic RAG Last year when I was learning RAG, that technique became known as Standard RAG or Semantic RAG. At its core, it’s a system that uses semantic search—understanding meaning rather than just matching keywords—to find relevant information, then feeds that information to an LLM to answer a user’s question. When you first build one of these systems, the results feel almost magical. But it …

Posted by Jason on Sunday, October 19, 2025

Hands-on Boston AgentCon Workshop

This past Saturday, I held my latest hands on workshop: From Static Files to Smart Agents: Unlocking Document Intelligence at AgentCon Boston. I ended up with around 30 attendees. There was quite a bit of interaction, with some real practical questions being asked about RAG and GenAI applications. Hand-on-Lab: From Static Files to Smart Agents: Unlocking Document Intelligence The repository is located at: https://github.com/JasonHaley/agentcon-boston-workshop What is it? The end result (which is the “completed” branch of the repo), is a Chainlit application designed to provide four use cases: Compare a clause between two contracts and get detail and risk analysis of the clause Analyze a clause that is in one contract but not the other Compare two complete contracts Create a …

Posted by Jason on Tuesday, September 30, 2025

My Session at Boston Global AI Bootcamp

Yesterday was Boston Azure AI’s Edition of the Global AI Bootcamp at the NERD in Cambridge. We had a lot of interest in the event - 85 people on the RSVP list and almost that on the waitlist. Since the space we had couldn’t handle any more people, unfortunately we couldn’t let more people in. However since there was such good interest in a Saturday AI oriented bootcamp, we are working on planning another one soon - so if you happen to be one of those people that couldn’t attend - stay tuned! This year we only had one challenge with the facilities … lack of power strips. Thanks to Rich Crane and Mill 5 for getting a bunch of power strips at the last minute for us! Also a big thanks to Daymark for providing the breakfast and lunch - they were really good and …

Posted by Jason on Sunday, March 23, 2025

Hands-on AI Workshop Jan 2025

Yesterday Bill Wilder, Juan Pablo Garcia Gonzalez and I had the second Hands-on AI Workshop - this time in Cambridge MA. Like the last time, the goal was to give the attendees a hands on experience using Semantic Kernel. The target audience was .NET developers using Visual Studio Code looking to learn GenAI. My presentation and labs focused on RAG. Talk: Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) I made a few small changes since the December workshop, mostly in the part where I discuss chunking. NOTE: The repository has moved to the new BostonAzureAI github. What about Visual Studio? The original labs are still on the old github that contain the Visual Studio labs, however this time we decided to simplify expectations and just focus on using VS Code. Personally I prefer Visual Studio for .NET …

Posted by Jason on Saturday, February 1, 2025

A Semantic Kernel Workshop

Announcing: A Semantic Kernel Workshop Friday Bill Wilder, Juan Pablo Garcia Gonzalez and I finally were able to make the workshop we’ve been working on for the past couple of months public. We had an in person day long event where we used the content, which was received really well. The attendees had some good questions - giving us some really good ideas on how to improve the content. Target audience: .NET developers looking to start using Gen AI in their applications Overview The workshop (currently has a long name which we’re planning on shortening soon): Building RAG-Enabled Apps and AI Agents with Semantic Kernel and Azure AI, contains 6 labs and (currently) 2 presentations. We have both Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio versions of the first 5 labs (I’m working …

Posted by Jason on Sunday, December 8, 2024

Hands-on AI Workshop Dec 2024

Yesterday Bill Wilder, Juan Pablo Garcia Gonzalez and I put on a Hands-on AI Workshop in Burlington MA. The goal was to give the attendees hands on experience using Semantic Kernel. The target audience was .NET developers using Visual Studio Code or Visual Studio looking to learn GenAI. I gave the middle presentations and labs focusing on RAG. Talk: Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) This was an intro level presentation on what RAG is and the concepts you need to know to create a RAG system. The presentation can be downloaded on the github here The labs that were RAG related where: Lab 3: Using WebRetrieverPlugin to create a RAG application - (Visual Studio edition) Lab 4: Creating a RAG application to Search a PDF - (Visual Studio Edition) Lab 5: Putting it all together - (Visual Studio …

Posted by Jason on Saturday, December 7, 2024

Azure SQL, Entity Framework, Semantic Kernel Hands-on-Lab

Announcing: Build a RAG App using Semantic Kernel, Entity Framework and Azure SQL DB Hands-on-Lab A couple of weeks ago after Azure SQL DB announced their public preview of native vector support, I put a hands on lab together to help people get started with the new feature and EF Core extension. Bill Wilder and I did mentioned it in our presentations on December 12 and December 15, but I haven’t had a chance to announce it for those of you who missed our presentations. Overview The hands on lab: Build a RAG App using Semantic Kernel, Entity Framework and Azure SQL DB provides a step-by-step walk through creating a RAG application using SQL Azure DB, EntityFramework Core and Semantic Kernel. I used VS Code for the steps, but if you are an experienced .NET developer using Visual …

Posted by Jason on Monday, November 25, 2024

Boston Code Camp 37 Session

Yesterday was Boston Code Camp 37. I spent the majority of the day talking with people in the community I haven’t seen for awhile, as well as some new people I hadn’t met before. I only made it to one session (Juan Pablo Garcia Gonzalez - Agentic AI: Unlocking the Power of Multi-Agent Systems), which was good and got me thinking about how to rewrite my demos in my talk to use agents. It was nice to see a good amount of new (and younger) people attending the code camp. We always have a lot of student volunteers from Curry College that help out and the last couple of years I’ve noticed some of them still continue to attend even after they have graduated. After having a full day of socializing, I realized that I must be an introvert because my energy was gone. Talk: Using …

Posted by Jason on Sunday, November 24, 2024

Techbash 2024

This week I presented at the TechBash conference in Pocono Manor, PA. All the resources for the conference are available on the TechBash GitHub repo. Below are links to my presentations specifically. It was great to see companies sending their employees to conferences again. This was my first time at TechBash, and I finally got to meet Alvin Ashcraft in person (the Morning Dew). I also met a bunch of people from the Philly area and around Pennsylvania, but there were attendees from all over-even a couple of guys from Panama! Talk: Getting Started with RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) The presentation pdf can be downloaded here. Talk: What is the Azure Dev CLI (AZD) and How Can You Use It? The presentation pdf can be downloaded here. If you have a questions or comments, please message …

Posted by Jason on Friday, September 27, 2024

Wisconsin .NET User Group

Last Thursday night I spoke at the Wisconsin .NET User Group near Milwaukee, WI. I was nice to meet so many .NET developers interested in RAG and AI. To carry on the tradition from my Memphis talk, I gave the presentation a local look using images related to Milwaukee generated from Bing/create. Talk: Getting Started with Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) The presentation pdf can be downloaded here. One of my demos failed to deploy before the talk, but I don’t think it was missed due to having so many good questions. It was really nice meeting a user group with so many core members. Plus the pizza was really good! Also, I mentioned it to someone at that talk - keep an eye out for this repo to show up: https://github.com/dotnet/eShopSupport and here is the talk by Steven Sanderson …

Posted by Jason on Tuesday, August 13, 2024

FEATURED TAGS
agentic rag series agents ai assistants api azd azure azure ai search azure document intelligence azure sql career chainlit conferences container apps copilot copilot studio ef core entity framework core eshopsupport series evaluations function calling graph rag hands-on-lab langchain learning local rag series micrsoft build announcements neo4j ollama openai pc build personal update phi4 presentation python rag rag demo series semantic kernel semantic kernel hello world series sql sql server study notes series text-to-sql vpn
ABOUT ME
avatar

Jason is an experienced developer and solutions architect focused on helping companies provide real business value with custom software development using the Microsoft stack of technologies. This includes C#, .NET, Azure and AI services. In 2024, Jason was awarded a Microsoft MVP in AI - highlighting his latest focus on AI and specifically Generative AI technologies in real world business applications. The prior seven years, he was a Microsoft Azure MVP.

Let's work together to find solutions that fit your needs. Reach out today to discuss how I can support your goals—I'm here to help!

Jason Haley MVP