The prototype works. The demo impresses. Then you try to ship it and everything falls apart. A hard-won checklist for taking a retrieval-augmented system from notebook to production without embarrassing yourself.
Most LLM systems in production have no systematic quality measurement. Here is how to build an evaluation harness that fits in a CI pipeline and actually catches regressions before your customers do.
A $2 000/month inference bill can become $40 000/month faster than your sprint cycle. Practical techniques for caching, routing, and prompt budgeting that keep LLM costs predictable without sacrificing quality.