Building Smarter Apps Using GenAI

Introduction

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) transforms business applications, empowering developers and technologists to create smarter, more dynamic solutions. This document provides the knowledge and tools needed to make your first GenAI-powered application and guides developers and business technologists in integrating GenAI into their Mendix applications.

Key Resources to Continue Your GenAI Journey

Getting Started with the How-Tos

• Build a Chatbot Using the AI Bot Starter App
• Build a Chatbot from Scratch Using the Blank GenAI App

Starter Apps

• The GenAI Showcase App demonstrates over 10 use cases for implementing GenAI.
• The Support Assistant Starter App is a template that incorporates RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), Function Calling (ReAct Pattern), and knowledge base integration. For more details on this use case, see How to Build Smarter Apps with Function Calling & Generative AI.

Prompt Engineering Resources

• The Prompt Engineering documentation provides an introduction to the basics of prompting and useful tips.
• The Prompt Library offers a collection of prompts used in Mendix applications, as well as other examples.
• The blog post Hey ChatGPT, Write a Blog Post About Prompt Engineering – Part 1 introduces the fundamentals of prompt engineering, including techniques and examples.
• The blog post Hey ChatGPT, Write a Blog Post About Prompt Engineering – Part 2 explores the Tree of Thought (ToT) prompt technique, provides recommendations for getting started, and discusses how to handle hallucinations.

Additional Resources

• Basic documentation on GenAI Concepts is an essential resource for anyone beginning their GenAI journey.
• The GenAICommons module is a prerequisite for all GenAI components.
• The ConversationalUI module offers UI snippets for chat, token consumption monitoring, and prompt management.
• The Mendix Cloud GenAI Resource Packs to learn how to quickly access GenAI capabilities from a Mendix app.
• The OpenAI provides essential information about the OpenAI connector.
• The Amazon Bedrock provides key information about the AWS Bedrock connector.
• The MCP Server Module provides reusable operations to create and initialize an MCP server within a Mendix app to expose tools and prompts to external clients.
• The PGVector Knowledge Base offers the option for a private knowledge base outside of the LLM infrastructure.

Featured Blog Posts

For more information, see Mendix's Agentic Applications blog posts, or explore the following selected posts.

Basics

• AI Model Training: What it is and How it Works
• What Are the Different Types of AI Models?
• OpenAI Using the GenAI for Mendix Module
• How to Configure Azure OpenAI Models in Mendix

Building Your Own Connector

• How to Run Open-Source LLMs Locally with the OpenAI Connector and Ollama

AI Agents

• How Multi-Agent AI Systems in Mendix Can Train You for a Marathon
• Control a Virtual Computer from Your Mendix App Using GenAI

Model Context Protocol (MCP)

• Use MCP to Bring Mendix Business Logic into Claude for Desktop

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