How to Use Ollama Embeddings in Langchain Effectively

Gary Svenson
7 min readSep 23, 2024

--

how to use ollama embeddings in langchain

Let’s talk about something that we all face during development: API Testing with Postman for your Development Team.

Yeah, I’ve heard of it as well, Postman is getting worse year by year, but, you are working as a team and you need some collaboration tools for your development process, right? So you paid Postman Enterprise for…. $49/month.

Now I am telling you: You Don’t Have to:

That’s right, APIDog gives you all the features that comes with Postman paid version, at a fraction of the cost. Migration has been so easily that you only need to click a few buttons, and APIDog will do everything for you.

APIDog has a comprehensive, easy to use GUI that makes you spend no time to get started working (If you have migrated from Postman). It’s elegant, collaborate, easy to use, with Dark Mode too!

Want a Good Alternative to Postman? APIDog is definitely worth a shot. But if you are the Tech Lead of a Dev Team that really want to dump Postman for something Better, and Cheaper, Check out APIDog!

Understanding Ollama and Langchain

To effectively discuss how to use Ollama embeddings in Langchain, it’s essential first to understand what Ollama and Langchain are within the context of natural language processing (NLP).

Ollama is a platform designed to enhance the development of AI capabilities, particularly focusing on providing embeddings, which are numerical representations of data that capture semantic meaning. Embeddings allow models to understand nuances in language by transforming words or phrases into vectors in a high-dimensional space.

Langchain, on the other hand, is a framework primarily aimed at building applications with large language models (LLMs). It empowers developers to create complex workflows, enabling LLMs to fetch data, streamline information processing, and enhance decision-making. Integrating Ollama embeddings into the Langchain framework can enhance the efficiency of these workflows by enriching LLM capabilities through enhanced data representation.

Setting Up Your Environment

Before diving into the integration of Ollama embeddings into Langchain, several prerequisite setups are necessary. Here is a step-by-step guide:

  1. Install Required Tools and Libraries To begin, ensure that you have Python 3.7 or newer installed. Next, install the essential packages, including langchain and any dependencies from Ollama. This can generally be executed via pip:
  • pip install langchain ollama
  1. Set Up the Ollama API To access Ollama embeddings, you need an API key that will allow your applications to authenticate requests. Register on the Ollama platform, navigate to the API section, and generate your API key.
  2. Configure Langchain for Ollama Embeddings Once you have your API key, configure Langchain to communicate with Ollama. In your main script or application configuration file, define the API settings:
  • from langchain import LanguageChain from ollama import OllamaAPI # Set up your Ollama API Client ollama_api = OllamaAPI(api_key="YOUR_OLLAMA_API_KEY") # Initialize Langchain with Ollama chain = LanguageChain(embedding_model=ollama_api)

Creating Ollama Embeddings

With the setup complete, you can now proceed to create embeddings using Ollama. This process involves transforming your text input into vector representations that the Langchain framework can utilize during processing.

  1. Create an Embedding Function Within your application, define a function that will take any arbitrary text input and convert it into embeddings using the Ollama API. Here’s a basic example:
  • def generate_embedding(text): embedding = ollama_api.embed(text) return embedding
  1. Using the Embedding Function Now that your embedding function is implemented, you can use it within the Langchain framework. Here’s how you can generate and retrieve embeddings:
  • input_text = "Natural language processing is a fascinating field." embedding_vector = generate_embedding(input_text) print(f"Embedding Vector: {embedding_vector}")

This operation produces a numerical array representing the semantic content of the input text, which can then be utilized in downstream processing, such as similarity searches or model training.

Integrating Embeddings into Langchain Workflows

Once you’ve established a method for generating embeddings from text, the next step is integrating these embeddings into your Langchain workflows. This integration can significantly augment the functionalities of your applications.

Building a Basic Retrieval Workflow

  1. Define Your Data Source First, outline the dataset you want your model to utilize. This dataset could be a collection of documents, articles, or any other textual sources.
  • data_collection = [ "The field of artificial intelligence encompasses various techniques.", "Machine learning is a subset of AI that focuses on prediction.", "Deep learning models excel in image and speech recognition." ]
  1. Generate and Store Embeddings For each item in your dataset, generate its embedding and store both the original text and the corresponding embedding.
  • embeddings = {} for text in data_collection: embeddings[text] = generate_embedding(text)
  1. Implement Similarity Search Functionality Once you have embeddings generated for your documents, you can create a similarity search function. This function compares a user-provided query embedding against your dataset embeddings to find the closest matches.
  • from sklearn.metrics.pairwise import cosine_similarity import numpy as np def search_query(query): query_embedding = generate_embedding(query) similarities = {} for text, embedding in embeddings.items(): similarity = cosine_similarity(np.array(query_embedding).reshape(1, -1), np.array(embedding).reshape(1, -1)) similarities[text] = similarity[0][0] # Sort by similarity sorted_results = sorted(similarities.items(), key=lambda item: item[1], reverse=True) return sorted_results # Example search query_result = search_query("What is machine learning?") print(f"Search Results: {query_result}")

This approach leverages embeddings to enable efficient information retrieval based on semantic meaning, resulting in enhanced user experiences when probing large volumes of text.

Enhancing Decision-Making with Langchain

Having established embedding generation and similarity search, it’s essential to consider how these embeddings can enhance decision-making processes across different domains.

Building an NLP-Powered Decision System

  1. Define Criteria for Decision Making First, identify decision-making criteria relevant to your application. For instance, consider a job application screening system that assesses candidates based on their resumes.
  2. Generate Candidate Embeddings Similar to previous steps, generate embeddings for the relevant texts (e.g., resumes).
  3. Develop Scoring Mechanism Create a scoring function to assess candidates based on how closely their resume content matches predetermined criteria, such as required skills or experience.
  • criteria = ["Python programming", "Data analysis", "Machine learning"] def score_candidate(resume): total_score = 0 for criterion in criteria: criterion_embedding = generate_embedding(criterion) resume_embedding = generate_embedding(resume) similarity = cosine_similarity(np.array(resume_embedding).reshape(1, -1), np.array(criterion_embedding).reshape(1, -1)) total_score += similarity[0][0] return total_score
  1. Rank Candidates Finally, rank candidates based on their scores and provide recommendations.
  • candidates = ["Resume of candidate A", "Resume of candidate B", "Resume of candidate C"] candidate_scores = {resume: score_candidate(resume) for resume in candidates} ranked_candidates = sorted(candidate_scores.items(), key=lambda item: item[1], reverse=True) print(ranked_candidates)

This decision-centric application exemplifies how embeddings can transform basic information processing into insightful decision-making capabilities.

Implementing Advanced Features with Langchain and Ollama

Once you are comfortable with the basics of integrating Ollama embeddings into Langchain workflows, consider extending functional complexity by leveraging additional Langchain capabilities.

Utilizing Memory and State Management

One powerful feature in Langchain is the ability to handle state and memory, enabling the creation of conversational agents or task-oriented systems. Here’s how to implement a simplified state management feature:

  1. Initialize a Memory Structure Create a simple dictionary to track user interactions and maintain context.
  • conversation_memory = []
  1. Updating Memory with Each Interaction For each user interaction, store the input text and generated response.
  • def update_memory(user_input, response): conversation_memory.append({"user": user_input, "bot": response})
  1. Utilizing Memory in Responses Generate responses in such a way that it refers back to prior inputs:
  • def response_generator(user_input): previous_context = " ".join([interaction["user"] + ": " + interaction["bot"] for interaction in conversation_memory]) combined_input = previous_context + " " + user_input response_embedding = generate_embedding(combined_input) # process with chain or LLM response = "" # Implement logic to generate a suitable response update_memory(user_input, response) return response

This increasingly sophisticated state management enables your system to engage in meaningful, context-aware conversations with users, showcasing the power of using Ollama embeddings in layered Langchain applications.

Conclusion

This system effectively demonstrates how to leverage Ollama embeddings within the Langchain ecosystem to build powerful NLP applications. By following the structured steps presented above — setup, embedding generation, workflow integration, decision-making enhancements, and stateful interactions — you can harness the full potential of these technologies for creating intelligent, context-aware applications.

Through this comprehensive exploration, you should now have the foundational knowledge and practical methodologies required to innovate and experiment within your projects utilizing Ollama and Langchain effectively.

Let’s talk about something that we all face during development: API Testing with Postman for your Development Team.

Yeah, I’ve heard of it as well, Postman is getting worse year by year, but, you are working as a team and you need some collaboration tools for your development process, right? So you paid Postman Enterprise for…. $49/month.

Now I am telling you: You Don’t Have to:

That’s right, APIDog gives you all the features that comes with Postman paid version, at a fraction of the cost. Migration has been so easily that you only need to click a few buttons, and APIDog will do everything for you.

APIDog has a comprehensive, easy to use GUI that makes you spend no time to get started working (If you have migrated from Postman). It’s elegant, collaborate, easy to use, with Dark Mode too!

Want a Good Alternative to Postman? APIDog is definitely worth a shot. But if you are the Tech Lead of a Dev Team that really want to dump Postman for something Better, and Cheaper, Check out APIDog!

--

--