🚀 Spring AI Learnings

My personal journey exploring Spring AI framework and building intelligent applications with Java and Spring Boot.

📖 About This Repository

This repository documents my learning path with Spring AI, Spring's official framework for building AI-powered applications. It contains practical examples, experiments, and notes as I explore various AI integration patterns with Spring Boot.

🎯 Learning Goals

• Master Spring AI fundamentals and core concepts
• Integrate various AI models (OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Ollama, etc.)
• Build RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) applications
• Implement AI tools calling
• Explore vector databases and embeddings
• Apply best practices for AI application development

🛠️ Technologies & Tools

• Java: 17+
• Spring Boot: 3.x
• Spring AI: Latest version
• AI Providers: OpenAI
• Vector Stores: PostgreSQL with pgvector
• Build Tool: Maven/Gradle

📋 Prerequisites

Before running the examples, ensure you have:

• JDK 17 or higher installed
• Maven or Gradle
• API keys for AI providers. Using OpenAI.
• Docker (optional, for running local vector databases)

🗂️ Project Structure

spring-ai-learnings/
├── src/main/java/
│   ├── advisors/            # Advisors explorations (to be explored)
│   ├── chat/                # Chat model examples
│   ├── rag/                 # RAG patterns and examples
│   ├── models/              # Data models
│   └── observability/       # Observability examples (to be explored)
├── src/main/resources/
│   ├── application.yml      # Application configuration
│   └── data/                # Sample data and vector stores
│       ├── article.pdf      # Sample article for RAG
│       ├── models.json      # Model configurations
│       ├── systemDesign.pdf # System design document
│       └── vectorstore.json # Built-in vector database
└── docs/                    # Additional documentation                  # Additional documentation

Getting Started

1. Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/niharikapatel412-hub/spring-ai-learnings.git
cd spring-ai-learnings

2. Configure API Keys

Create an application-local.yml file in src/main/resources/:

spring:
  ai:
    openai:
      api-key: ${OPENAI_API_KEY}

Or set environment variables:

export OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_key

3. Build and Run

# Using Maven
mvn clean install
mvn spring-boot:run

# Using Gradle
./gradlew build
./gradlew bootRun

📚 Topics to be Covered

✅ Chat Models

• Basic chat completions
• Streaming responses
• Multi-modal inputs (text + images)
• Chat history management
• Different model providers (OpenAI, Claude, Ollama)

✅ Embeddings & Vector Stores

• Generating embeddings
• Storing vectors in databases
• Similarity search
• Integration with Pinecone, Chroma, pgvector

✅ RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)

• Document loading and chunking
• Building knowledge bases
• Query-based retrieval
• Context injection into prompts

✅ Tools Calling

• Defining functions for AI to call
• Weather APIs, database queries
• Multi-step workflows
• Error handling

✅ Prompt Engineering

• Prompt templates
• Few-shot learning
• System prompts
• Output parsers

✅ Observability

• Request/response logging
• Token usage tracking
• Performance monitoring

📝 Learning Notes

Key Takeaways

• Spring AI abstracts away provider-specific APIs, making it easy to switch between models
• Vector stores are crucial for building context-aware applications
• Proper chunking strategy significantly impacts RAG performance
• Function calling enables AI to interact with external systems

Projects Built Using These Learnings

I've applied the concepts learned in this repository to build real-world applications:

1. Agentic TiDB CRUD Example

   • (https://github.com/niharikapatel412-hub/tiDb-Agentic-AI)

2. Trade Execution Demo Project

   • (https://github.com/niharikapatel412-hub/trade-execution-demo-project)

🔗 Resources

Official Documentation

• Spring AI Documentation
• Spring AI GitHub

Tutorials & Guides

• Getting Started with Spring AI
• Spring AI Examples
• Dan Vega's Spring AI Workshop Video
• Dan Vega's Spring AI Workshop GitHub

📬 Contact

• GitHub: @niharikapatel412-hub
• LinkedIn: Niharika Patel

Happy Learning! 🎓