snailclimb/aiguide

AIGuide is a free, open-source guide to building AI-powered applications, written primarily for backend software developers. It was created by the same author behind JavaGuide, a popular Chinese programming reference. The content covers the core ideas and engineering practices behind modern AI systems, including how large language models work, how to call their APIs reliably, and how to structure their outputs in formats a program can use. A large section of the guide focuses on AI Agents, which are systems where a language model can take actions, use tools, and maintain memory across multiple steps. Topics include prompt engineering, context management, the MCP protocol for connecting agents to external tools, and workflow patterns for chaining AI steps together. There is also a dedicated section on RAG, which stands for Retrieval-Augmented Generation, a technique for giving a language model access to a private knowledge base at query time. The guide includes practical walkthroughs of AI-assisted coding tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, OpenAI Codex, and Trae. These sections show real examples of using AI to refactor old code, diagnose performance problems, and work across different programming languages. There are also interview preparation materials covering common questions about AI coding tools and their impact on backend development. All articles are freely readable online at javaguide.cn and the repository links there directly. The author notes each article is accompanied by many diagrams to aid understanding. The repository itself holds the index and links rather than the full article text.