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.

How I Vibecoded a Backend (and Frontend) on InterSystems IRIS

I wanted to try vibecoding a real backend + frontend setup on InterSystems IRIS, ideally using something realistic rather than a toy example. The goal was simple: take an existing, well-known persistent package in IRIS and quickly build a usable UI and API around it — letting AI handle as much of the boilerplate as possible. Here is the result of the experiments.

We were testing upgrades on our internal systems recently, and were initially surprised to see a change in some instances of SQL behavior. On further investigation, the changes make a lot of sense, and are easy to adapt to. But, to hopefully save you some time and provide additional information in case this is something you too find curious or interesting, we thought we would share our understanding of the changes and how we got around it to preserve previous behavior where desired.

If you already know Java (or .Net) and perhaps also have used other document databases (or looking for one), but you are new to the InterSystems world, this post should help you.

InterSystems IRIS Cloud Document is a fully managed document database that lets you store JSON documents and query them with familiar SQL syntax, delivered as a cloud service managed by InterSystems.

In this article pair I’ll walk you through:

• Part I - Intro and Quick Tour (this article)
  • What is it?
  • Spinning up an InterSystems IRIS Cloud Document deployment
  • Taking a quick tour of the service via the service UI
• Part II - Sample (Dockerized) Java App (the next article)
  • Grabbing the connection details and TLS certificate
  • Reviewing a simple Java sample that creates a collection, inserts documents, and queries them
  • Setting up and running the Java (Dockerized) end‑to‑end sample

The goal is to give you a smooth “first run” experience.