Intersystems IRIS Productions provide a powerful framework for connecting disparate systems across various protocols and message formats in a reliable, observable, and scalable manner. intersystems_pyprod, short for InterSystems Python Productions, is a Python library that enables developers to build these interoperability components entirely in Python. Designed for flexibility, it supports a hybrid approach: you can seamlessly mix new Python-based components with existing ObjectScript-based ones, leveraging your established IRIS infrastructure.

Ever since I started using IRIS, I have wondered if we could create agents on IRIS. It seemed obvious: we have an Interoperability GUI that can trace messages, we have an underlying object database that can store SQL, Vectors and even Base64 images. We currently have a Python SDK that allows us to interface with the platform using Python, but not particularly optimized for developing agentic workflows. This was my attempt to create a Python SDK that can leverage several parts of IRIS to support development of agentic systems.

1-command only required for an entire IRIS instance for Data Science projects, and leveraging this to compare query methods' speed (Dynamic SQL, Pandas Query, and Globals).

Before joining InterSystems, I worked in a team of web developers as a data scientist. Most of my day-to-day work involved training and embedding ML models in Python-based backend applications through microservices, mainly built with the Django framework and using Postgres SQL for sourcing the data.

Vector search is a retrieval method that converts text, images, audio, and other data into numeric vectors using an AI model, and then searches for items that are semantically close. It enables “semantic similarity search” from free text, which is difficult with keyword search alone.

However, in real use, I encountered cases where results that are “close in meaning” but logically the opposite appeared near the top of the search results.

This is a serious issue in situations where affirmation vs. negation matters. If the system returns the wrong answer, the impact can be significant, so we cannot ignore this problem.

This article does not propose a new algorithm. I wrote it to share a practical way I found useful when semantic search fails due to negation.

TL;DR: This article demonstrates how to run GraphRAG-style hybrid retrieval—combining vector similarity, graph traversal, and full-text search—entirely within InterSystems IRIS using the iris-vector-graph package. We use a fraud detection scenario to show how graph patterns reveal what vector search alone would miss.

Why Fraud Detection Needs Graphs

Every year, businesses and consumers lose billions to fraud. In 2024 alone, consumers reported $12.5 billion lost—a 25% increase year over year. What makes modern fraud so difficult to detect is that fraudsters rarely work alone.

Senior engineering is defined not by the volume of code produced, but by the strategic avoidance of it. In complex integration environments, the tendency to utilize general-purpose libraries for every niche requirement introduces unnecessary overhead. True architectural maturity requires a commitment to "minimalist tooling"—prioritizing resilient, battle-tested system utilities over custom logic. This assessment examines our PGP encryption/decryption pipeline to demonstrate how shifting from application-level libraries to OS-native delegation enhances system durability.

Introduction

Earlier this year, I set about creating kit to introduce young techy folk at a Health Tech hackathon to using InterSystems IRIS for health, particularly focusing on using FHIR and vector search.

I wanted to publish this to the developer community because the tutorials included in the kit make a great introduction to using FHIR and to building a basic RAG system in IRIS.

Embeddedpy-bridge: A Toolkit for Embedded Python

Overview

Embedded Python is a game-changer for InterSystems IRIS, offering access to the vast Python ecosystem directly within the database. However, bridging the gap between ObjectScript and Python can sometimes feel like translating between two different worlds.

To make this transition seamless using embeddedpy-bridge.

This package is a developer-centric utility kit designed to provide high-level ObjectScript wrappers, familiar syntax, and robust error handling for Embedded Python.

The Rut

Up until early this year, I haven't been not doing much coding at all -- I had gotten sick of it.

After many years as a hands-on software engineer and data scientist, I got burned out around 2015. I switched to business development roles focused on "external innovation," then joined InterSystems in 2019 as a product manager. I missed the creative aspects of coding, but not the tedium. The endless cycle of boilerplate, debugging, and context-switching had left me creatively depleted.

How to Build Applications with LangGraph: A Step-by-Step Guide

Tags: #LangGraph #LangChain #AI #Agents #Python #LLM #StateManagement #Workflows

Hi everyone, I want to tell you a little about LangGraph, a tool that I'm studying and developing.

Basically traditional AI applications often face challenges when dealing with complex workflows and dynamic states. LangGraph offers a robust solution, enabling the creation of stateful agents that can manage complex conversations, make context-based decisions, and execute sophisticated workflows.

I'm a huge sci-fi fan, but while I'm fully onboard the Star Wars train (apologies to my fellow Trekkies!), but I've always appreciated the classic episodes of Star Trek from my childhood. The diverse crew of the USS Enterprise, each masterminding their unique roles, is a perfect metaphor for understanding AI agents and their power in projects like Facilis. So, let's embark on an intergalactic mission, leveraging AI as our ship's crew and  boldly go where no man has gone before!

Apache Airflow is the leading open-source platform to programmatically author, schedule, and monitor data pipelines and workflows using Python. Workflows are defined as code (DAGs), making them version-controlled, testable, and reusable. With a rich UI, 100+ built-in operators, dynamic task generation, and native support for cloud providers, Airflow powers ETL/ELT, ML pipelines, and batch jobs at companies like Airbnb, Netflix, and Spotify.

Airflow Application Layout

How to set up RAG for OpenAI agents using IRIS Vector DB in Python

In this article, I’ll walk you through an example of using InterSystems IRIS Vector DB to store embeddings and integrate them with an OpenAI agent.

To demonstrate this, we’ll create an OpenAI agent with knowledge of InterSystems technology. We’ll achieve this by storing embeddings of some InterSystems documentation in IRIS and then using IRIS vector search to retrieve relevant content—enabling a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) workflow.

Note: Section 1 details how process text into embeddings.

In this article I will be discussing the use of an alternative LLM for generative IA. OpenIA is commonly used, in this article I will show you how to use it and the advantages of using Ollama

In the generative AI usage model that we are used to, we have the following flow:

• we take texts from a data source (a file, for example) and embedding that text into vectors
• we store the vectors in an IRIS database.
• we call an LLM (Large Language Model) that accesses these vectors as context to generate responses in human language.

Hi,

When we open a terminal in IRIS, we are entering the ObjectScript shell. Within this shell, we can execute IRIS commands, such as:

In other words, the ObjectScript command is executed in the current shell. But it's always good to remember that IRIS has other shells

• SQL
• Python
• TSQL
• MDX

One very interesting aspect is shortcuts. We can access these shells through their calls or via shortcuts, as shown in the table below:

Hi Community,

In the first part of this series, we examined the fundamentals of Interoperability on Python (IoP), specifically how it enables us to construct such interoperability elements as business services, processes, and operations using pure Python.

Now, we are ready to take things a step further. Real-world integration scenarios extend beyond simple message handoffs.They involve scheduled polling, custom message structures, decision logic, filtering, and configuration handling.In this article, we will delve into these more advanced IoP capabilities and demonstrate how to create and run a more complex interoperability flow using only Python.

To make it practical, we will build a comprehensive example: The Reddit Post Analyzer Production. The concept is straightforward: continuously retrieving the latest submissions from a chosen subreddit, filtering them based on popularity, adding extra tags to them, and sending them off for storage or further analysis.

The ultimate goal here is a reliable, self-running data ingestion pipeline. All major parts (the Business Service, Business Process, and Business Operation) are implemented in Python, showcasing how to use IoP as a Python-first integration methodology.

Introduction

In InterSystems IRIS 2024.3 and subsequent IRIS versions, the AutoML component is now delivered as a separate Python package that is installed after installation. Unfortunately, some recent versions of Python packages that AutoML relies on have introduced incompatibilities, and can cause failures when training models (TRAIN MODEL statement). If you see an error mentioning "TypeError" and the keyword argument "fit_params" or "sklearn_tags", read on for a quick fix.

Root Cause

• scikit-learn updated to version 1.6.0, deprecating fit_params.

Hi all,

Let's do some more work about the testing data generation and export the result by REST API.😁

Here, I would like to reuse the datagen.restservice class which built in the pervious article Writing a REST api service for exporting the generated patient data in .csv

This time, we are planning to generate a FHIR bundle include multiple resources for testing the FHIR repository.

Here is some reference for you, if you want to know mare about FHIR The Concept of FHIR: A Healthcare Data Standard Designed for the Future

OK... Let's start😆

1. Create a new utility class datagen.utli.

Hi all,

It's me again 😁. In the pervious article Writing a REST api service for exporting the generated FHIR bundle in JSON, we actually generated a resource DocumentReference, with the content data encoded in Base64

Question!! Is it possible to write a REST service for decoding it? Because I am very curious what is the message data talking about🤔🤔🤔

OK, Let's start!

1. Create a new utility class datagen.utli.decodefhirjson.cls for decoding the data inside the DocumentReference
 

Class datagen.utli.decodefhirjson Extends %RegisteredObject
{
}

2. Write a Python function decodebase64docref to 
a

Hi,

It's me again😁, recently I am working on generating some fake patient data for testing purpose with the help of Chat-GPT by using Python. And, at the same time I would like to share my learning curve.😑

1st of all for building a custom REST api service is easy by extending the %CSP.REST

Creating a REST Service Manually

Let's Start !😂

1. Create a class datagen.restservice which extends  %CSP.REST 

Class datagen.restservice Extends %CSP.REST
{
Parameter CONTENTTYPE = "application/json";
}

2.

Introduction

In my previous article, I introduced the FHIR Data Explorer, a proof-of-concept application that connects InterSystems IRIS, Python, and Ollama to enable semantic search and visualization over healthcare data in FHIR format, a project currently participating in the InterSystems External Language Contest.

In this follow-up, we’ll see how I integrated Ollama for generating patient history summaries directly from structured FHIR data stored in IRIS, using lightweight local language models (LLMs) such as Llama 3.2:1B or Gemma 2:2B.

The goal was to build a completely local AI pipeline that can extract, format, and narrate patient histories while keeping data private and under full control.

All patient data used in this demo comes from FHIR bundles, which were parsed and loaded into IRIS via the IRIStool module. This approach makes it straightforward to query, transform, and vectorize healthcare data using familiar pandas operations in Python. If you’re curious about how I built this integration, check out my previous article Building a FHIR Vector Repository with InterSystems IRIS and Python through the IRIStool module.

Both IRIStool and FHIR Data Explorer are available on the InterSystems Open Exchange — and part of my contest submissions. If you find them useful, please consider voting for them!

• IRIStool and Data Manager
• FHIR Data Explorer

Introduction

In a previous article, I presented the IRIStool module, which seamlessly integrates the pandas Python library with the IRIS database. Now, I'm explaining how we can use IRIStool to leverage InterSystems IRIS as a foundation for intelligent, semantic search over healthcare data in FHIR format.

This article covers what I did to create the database for another of my projects, the FHIR Data Explorer. Both projects are candidates in the current InterSystems contest, so please vote for them if you find them useful.

You can find them at the Open Exchange:

• IRIStool and Data Manager
• FHIR Data Explorer

In this article we'll cover:

• Connecting to InterSystems IRIS database through Python
• Creating a FHIR-ready database schema
• Importing FHIR data with vector embeddings for semantic search

Hi everyone! 👋
I’m excited to share the project I’ve submitted to the current InterSystems .Net, Java, Python, and JavaScript Contest — it’s called IRIStool and Data Manager, and you can find it on the InterSystems Open Exchange and on my GitHub page.

It's about an example for the External Languages Contest 2025

You get almost any information about your databases in IRIS using 
the System Management Portal. After passing several levels, you often
get a wide list of items, but the interesting ones are hard to find.