LangChain Interview Questions (Comprehensive Guide)
1. LangChain Basics
- What is LangChain, and how does it help structure large language model applications?
- How does LangChain abstract away the complexity of prompt engineering and API interactions?
- Can you explain how LangChain supports modular development for LLM applications?
- In what scenarios is LangChain particularly beneficial compared to raw API usage?
- What are the main building blocks of a LangChain app, and how do they work together?
- How does LangChain support both synchronous and asynchronous processing?
2. Chains in LangChain
- What is a Chain in LangChain, and how does it facilitate LLM workflows?
- Differentiate between LLMChain, SimpleSequentialChain, and SequentialChain with examples.
- How do you pass multiple inputs and outputs across a SequentialChain?
- What are common use cases for chaining multiple LLMs in LangChain?
- How do you debug intermediate steps in a chain when one step fails?
3. Prompt Engineering
- How does PromptTemplate work in LangChain and how do you format dynamic variables?
- What is few-shot prompting and how is it applied using LangChain?
- How do you structure system, human, and AI roles in ChatPromptTemplate?
- What are the best practices for constructing prompts for complex multi-step tasks?
- How can you evaluate the effectiveness of a prompt and iterate on it in LangChain?
4. Memory in LangChain
- What is the role of memory in LangChain and how does it affect agent behavior?
- Compare and contrast ConversationBufferMemory and ConversationSummaryMemory.
- How do you handle token limits when using memory with long conversations?
- Can memory be persisted between sessions? If so, how?
LangChain Interview Questions (Comprehensive Guide)
- How do you clear or reset memory for a chain or agent?
5. Tools and Agents
- How do LangChain agents use tools to accomplish tasks?
- Explain the internal flow of a ReAct agent with reasoning steps.
- What is the role of the Tool class, and how do you create a custom tool?
- How do you handle tool failure or retry logic in LangChain agents?
- How do agents parse tool outputs and re-integrate them into prompts?
6. Document Loaders & Text Splitters
- How do document loaders abstract different data sources in LangChain?
- What is the use of metadata in loaded documents and how is it preserved?
- How do you handle large documents using text splitters?
- Explain the importance of overlapping chunks when using text splitters.
- What are best practices for loading documents from custom file formats or APIs?
7. Embeddings & Vector Stores
- How are embeddings used in semantic search and RAG within LangChain?
- Explain how to configure and use FAISS as a vector store in LangChain.
- What are the performance considerations between local (e.g., FAISS) and cloud-based (e.g., Pinecone) vector stores?
- How do you update an existing vector store with new documents incrementally?
- What metrics can you use to evaluate similarity search quality in embeddings?
8. RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation)
- How does RetrievalQA integrate retrievers and LLMs to enhance answers?
- What are retriever interfaces, and how do you implement a custom retriever?
- Explain the flow of a multi-hop RAG pipeline in LangChain.
LangChain Interview Questions (Comprehensive Guide)
- How do you optimize retrieval for diverse document types and embeddings?
- How can you evaluate RAG performance and reduce hallucination?
9. Cloud & Deployment
- How do you deploy LangChain applications to AWS Lambda or GCP Cloud Functions?
- What is LangServe and how does it help in exposing chains as REST APIs?
- How do you manage secrets and API keys securely in cloud environments?
- How can you use Docker to containerize LangChain applications?
- What strategies can you use to scale LangChain apps across multiple users?
10. External APIs & Tools
- How do you integrate third-party APIs in LangChain using custom tools?
- What is the best way to validate and parse tool output from an API response?
- How do output parsers enhance control over structured LLM responses?
- How can you safely expose APIs to agents without risking prompt injection?
11. Python Ecosystem Integration
- How do you use LangChain with Pandas for data manipulation and analysis?
- How does SQLDatabaseChain interact with real-time SQL databases?
- Explain how OpenAI Function Calling is handled within LangChain workflows.
- How do you connect LangChain to spreadsheet or BI tools for reporting use cases?
12. Testing and Debugging
- How do you use callback handlers to trace LangChain operations?
- How do you unit test LLM chains and mock LLM responses?
- How does LangSmith help in observability and prompt debugging?
- What tools or techniques can be used to benchmark LLM performance within LangChain?
LangChain Interview Questions (Comprehensive Guide)
13. Advanced LangChain Topics
- What is LangGraph and how does it enable graph-based workflows?
- How do you build multi-modal agents in LangChain (e.g., image + text)?
- Explain how feedback loops are implemented in LLM pipelines.
- What are the trade-offs in building autonomous agents using LangChain?