Using Agent Skills to develop with Oracle AI Database Skills are reusable, task-specific workflows for your agents: each skill is a directory centered on a SKILL.md file, with optional scripts,references, and assets packaged together. Skills bring context efficient capabilities to agents in a reliable, repeatable manner. In this article, we’ll look at what skills are, how to install them, and how the open source oracle-db-skills repo can help your agents do real work with Oracle AI Database.

Using Agent Skills to develop with Oracle AI Database

Skills are reusable, task-specific workflows for your agents: each skill is a directory centered on a SKILL.md file, with optional scripts,references, and assets packaged together. Skills bring context efficient capabilities to agents in a…

Agent Memory with LangChain4j and Oracle AI Database One of the quickest ways to make an impressive agent demo is to prepare a clever prompt. One of the quickest ways to make that same agent fall apart in production is to give it no durable memory. In this article, we'll build a small, memory-backed assistant with LangChain4j and Oracle AI Database. The assistant can search prior incidents, runbooks, decisions, and shift handoffs to answer questions.

Agent Memory with LangChain4j and Oracle AI Database

One of the quickest ways to make an impressive agent demo is to prepare a clever prompt. One of the quickest ways to make that same agent fall apart in production is to give it no durable memory. In this article, we'll build a small,…

Full-Text JSON Search with Oracle Text Did you know Oracle AI Database supports rich, full-text search and indexing, without the need to operate an external document store? In this article, we'll implement full-text search on Oracle's JSON data type, following the jdbc-json-oracle-text sample hosted on GitHub. The JSON text-search sample shows how we can: Load and bind Oracle JSON (OSON) documents with a JSON search index using Oracle Text…

Full-Text JSON Search with Oracle Text

Did you know Oracle AI Database supports rich, full-text search and indexing, without the need to operate an external document store? In this article, we'll implement full-text search on Oracle's JSON data type, following the jdbc-json-oracle-text sample…

Oracle AI Database: Property Graphs and JDBC Want to query graph-shaped relationships in Oracle AI Database from plain JDBC? You can do exactly that with built-in graph capabilities. In this article, we'll walk through a sample that shows how to use property graphs in Oracle AI Database, building graph queries over standard relational tables with the GRAPH_TABLE operator. If you want to skip straight to the code, start here: …

Oracle AI Database: Property Graphs and JDBC

Want to query graph-shaped relationships in Oracle AI Database from plain JDBC? You can do exactly that with built-in graph capabilities. In this article, we'll walk through a sample that shows how to use property graphs in Oracle AI Database, building…

Test ORDS locally with Testcontainers, Oracle AI Database Free, and MongoDB Want to run Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) for integration tests, local experiments, or prototyping? This sample combines ORDS and Oracle AI Database Free in a disposable test environment with Testcontainers and one Maven command. If you want to skip straight to the code, the full sample is here: ords-testcontainers sample on GitHub The module exercises three useful things in one place:

Test ORDS locally with Testcontainers, Oracle AI Database Free, and MongoDB

Want to run Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) for integration tests, local experiments, or prototyping? This sample combines ORDS and Oracle AI Database Free in a disposable test environment with Testcontainers and one…

Get Started with Spatial Data in Oracle AI Database Using JDBC Spatial data is a database feature that sounds niche right up until you need it. When your application must answer questions like "what landmarks fall inside this map window?", "what is the exact distance between these two places?", or "what objects are near this location?", you're working with spatial data. Oracle AI Database includes first-class support for spatial data. You can store geometry in tables, index it, and query it with specialized operators 

Get Started with Spatial Data in Oracle AI Database Using JDBC

Spatial data is a database feature that sounds niche right up until you need it. When your application must answer questions like "what landmarks fall inside this map window?", "what is the exact distance between these two…

oracle-database-code-samples/jdbc-property-graph at main · anders-swanson/oracle-database-code-samples Sample applications using Oracle Database and Java 21+ - anders-swanson/oracle-database-code-samples

New Java sample: `jdbc-property-graph` for Oracle AI Database Property Graphs.

It shows relational-table graph modeling, `CREATE PROPERTY GRAPH`, `GRAPH_TABLE`, and local testing with Java 21+, Docker, Maven, Testcontainers, and Oracle AI Database Free.

github.com/anders-swans...

Common Strategies to Improve Spring Boot Performance If your Spring Boot apps feel slow, the fix is usually not one magic JVM flag or a major database rewrite.  Most gains come from removing avoidable work, making startup leaner, and making sure the app behaves predictably under load. That is why Spring Boot performance work usually breaks into a few familiar buckets: Startup time Memory and GC behavior…

Common Strategies to Improve Spring Boot Performance

If your Spring Boot apps feel slow, the fix is usually not one magic JVM flag or a major database rewrite.  Most gains come from removing avoidable work, making startup leaner, and making sure the app behaves predictably under load. That is why…

Generate JSON Relational Duality Views from JPA entities Oracle AI Database's JSON Relational Duality Views (or simply duality views) let you treat relational tables and JSON documents as two sides of the same model: build your relational schema, and use comprehensive, normalized JSON documents on top. In this article, we’ll walk through the json/jpa-duality-views sample, which combines Spring Boot, Spring Data JPA, and the Oracle JSON Duality View Spring Boot starter to generate read/write duality views from annotated JPA entities at application startup.

Generate JSON Relational Duality Views from JPA entities

Oracle AI Database's JSON Relational Duality Views (or simply duality views) let you treat relational tables and JSON documents as two sides of the same model: build your relational schema, and use comprehensive, normalized JSON documents on…

Hands-on CRUD with JDBC and JSON Relational Duality Views JSON Relational Duality Views are one of my favorite Oracle AI Database features (I’ll call them “duality views” from here on out). Duality views let you model data once, then serve it cleanly to both worlds: JSON-first application code and relational SQL workloads. In this article, we’ll get hands-on with the json/crud-duality-views code sample to demonstrate CRUD (create, read, update, delete)

Hands-on CRUD with JDBC and JSON Relational Duality Views

JSON Relational Duality Views are one of my favorite Oracle AI Database features (I’ll call them “duality views” from here on out). Duality views let you model data once, then serve it cleanly to both worlds: JSON-first application code and…

Brand new to Oracle AI Database? Start Here Many Oracle guides are written for DBAs or long-time developers, and as a newcomer it feels like you’re expected to already know the jargon. I started in the same place, learning the as I went, and I’m still learning each day. If you're considering using Oracle AI Database, I'm here to make this easy for you. Prefer code samples over blogs?

Brand new to Oracle AI Database? Start Here

Many Oracle guides are written for DBAs or long-time developers, and as a newcomer it feels like you’re expected to already know the jargon. I started in the same place, learning the as I went, and I’m still learning each day. If you're considering using…

LangChain vs. DIY: Vector Search with Oracle AI Database When do you use a framework vs. write your own implementation - especially when it comes to AI? Frameworks can be the fastest path to production, only to act as a stumbling block later on. Often, the design choice isn't obvious. To better understand this question, we'll compare two different vector search implementations using Python and Oracle AI Database, looking at the benefits and drawbacks of each.

LangChain vs. DIY: Vector Search with Oracle AI Database

When do you use a framework vs. write your own implementation - especially when it comes to AI? Frameworks can be the fastest path to production, only to act as a stumbling block later on. Often, the design choice isn't obvious. To better…

Use Oracle FreeSQL.com as a remote test database FreeSQL.com lets you use a free, hosted Oracle AI Database instance right from your browser. But, FreeSQL can also be used as a remote database for testing, POCs, and more! In this article, we'll walk though how to connect to a FreeSQL database from your local machine, no database setup required. Login to FreeSQL.com To use FreeSQL as a remote database, you'll need to login using your Oracle account.

Use Oracle FreeSQL.com as a remote test database

FreeSQL.com lets you use a free, hosted Oracle AI Database instance right from your browser. But, FreeSQL can also be used as a remote database for testing, POCs, and more! In this article, we'll walk though how to connect to a FreeSQL database from…

Data Is Context: Building Agent Harness with Database at the Center Long-running agents often fail because they lack disciplined, accurate context. This is especially important when tasks run for hours, touch multiple systems, and must respect permissions, compliance boundaries, and other constraints. When building with agents, data is context, and context is critical. Where does this data most often live? Your database. What is an “agent harness”? An agent harness is the…

Data Is Context: Building Agent Harness with Database at the Center

Long-running agents often fail because they lack disciplined, accurate context. This is especially important when tasks run for hours, touch multiple systems, and must respect permissions, compliance boundaries, and other…

Overview of Caching Strategies with Oracle AI Database - andersswanson.dev Recently, I’ve been exploring different caching database caching strategies with Oracle AI Database and came to the following conclusion: Choosing the right mix of caching and read-scaling options…

Caching can improve performance by bringing data closer to the client

@anders-swanson.bsky.social gives an overview of the caches in Oracle AI Database, including

Oracle True Cache
Oracle Active Data Guard
Database In-Memory
Buffer Cache
Server-Side Result Cache

Overview of Caching Strategies with Oracle AI Database Recently, I've been exploring different caching database caching strategies with Oracle AI Database and came to the following conclusion: Choosing the right mix of caching and read-scaling options doesn't have to be a one-feature or one-service decision. Teams have a rich toolbox of caching and scaling options available, but also real trade-offs. This article provides an overview of database caching options, including related options that aren't caches (Data Guard).

Overview of Caching Strategies with Oracle AI Database

Recently, I've been exploring different caching database caching strategies with Oracle AI Database and came to the following conclusion: Choosing the right mix of caching and read-scaling options doesn't have to be a one-feature or…

Reflecting on a year of DevRel with Oracle AI Database Over the past year, I’ve been working in DevRel focused on modern application development with Oracle AI Database. Coming from a product engineering background, the shift was challenging: I moved from product, DevOps, and infrastructure work into a public-facing role, meeting users, partnering with PMs, and building a presence in the Oracle developer community. It’s been a steep learning curve…

Reflecting on a year of DevRel with Oracle AI Database

Over the past year, I’ve been working in DevRel focused on modern application development with Oracle AI Database. Coming from a product engineering background, the shift was challenging: I moved from product, DevOps, and infrastructure work…

Propagating Cross-Database Events with Oracle AI Database Event-driven apps don’t have to stop at a single database boundary. In this hands-on guide, you’ll use Transactional Event Queues (TxEventQ) in Oracle AI Database to propagate real-time events from one database to another, no external broker required. We’ll spin up two container instances of Oracle AI Database Free, create multi-consumer topics in each database, and schedule cross-database queue-to-queue propagation. …

Propagating Cross-Database Events with Oracle AI Database

Event-driven apps don’t have to stop at a single database boundary. In this hands-on guide, you’ll use Transactional Event Queues (TxEventQ) in Oracle AI Database to propagate real-time events from one database to another, no external…

GraphQL with ORDS & Oracle AI Database If you're running Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) or Oracle Autonomous AI Database, you've got a configurable GraphQL server ready to query your data. GraphQL is a strongly typed query language and runtime for APIs that lets clients request exactly the data they need through a single endpoint, reducing over- and under-fetching. In this article, we'll walk through using ORDS as a GraphQL server…

GraphQL with ORDS & Oracle AI Database

If you're running Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) or Oracle Autonomous AI Database, you've got a configurable GraphQL server ready to query your data. GraphQL is a strongly typed query language and runtime for APIs that lets clients request exactly the data…

GraphQL + Oracle: Instantly Query Relational Data GraphQL became popular for its ability to provide fewer round trips, predictable payloads, and evolving client schemas. If you run Oracle AI Database, you don’t need a new data store to get those benefits: Using SQL, you can run GraphQL queries on your existing relational schemas. What is GraphQL? GraphQL with Oracle SQL Define a relational schema (many-to-many) Query with GraphQL()

GraphQL + Oracle: Instantly Query Relational Data

GraphQL became popular for its ability to provide fewer round trips, predictable payloads, and evolving client schemas. If you run Oracle AI Database, you don’t need a new data store to get those benefits: Using SQL, you can run GraphQL queries on…

Why You Should Use Pluggable Databases (PDBs) PDBs give microservices their own isolated database environment inside one database instance, reducing blast radius, simplifying lifecycle ops, and enabling hard resource controls. This solves the problem of what services need from the database layer: Strong isolation (workload, security, transactions) Independent lifecycle (patch, clone, refresh, move, deploy) Predictable performance and resource controls Simple connectivity and access, with optional cross-PDB traffic…

Why You Should Use Pluggable Databases (PDBs)

PDBs give microservices their own isolated database environment inside one database instance, reducing blast radius, simplifying lifecycle ops, and enabling hard resource controls. This solves the problem of what services need from the database layer:…

Transactional isolation in a multi-model database Most apps rarely fit a single data model. A single business action can touch JSON documents, update a graph, write spatial coordinates, process vector embeddings, and publish events to downstream services, all within the same database. However, not all work is equal - A millisecond OLTP order update shouldn't wait for a long-running vector similarity scan. Explicit control…

Transactional isolation in a multi-model database

Most apps rarely fit a single data model. A single business action can touch JSON documents, update a graph, write spatial coordinates, process vector embeddings, and publish events to downstream services, all within the same database. However, not…

Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) with Docker Compose Setting up Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) test environment is quick and simple with Docker Compose and Oracle AI Database Free. In this article, we'll set up a clean, consistent ORDS + Database environment in minutes using containers: No manual installs and no guesswork. Note: This is intended as a lab setup and not a production grade installation. I've previously blogged about ORDS with Oracle Autonomous AI Database Free…

Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) with Docker Compose

Setting up Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) test environment is quick and simple with Docker Compose and Oracle AI Database Free. In this article, we'll set up a clean, consistent ORDS + Database environment in minutes using containers: No…

Level Up Your Schema: Annotations for Object Metadata in Oracle AI Database In Oracle AI Database, annotations provide a powerful way to attach metadata to database objects. Tables, columns, views, and domains are enhanced with self-describing, user-defined assets. This article introduces annotations and how you can start using them to make your data more explainable and AI-ready. Database Annotations Create a Table With Annotations Update Annotations Remove Annotations Example: Use annotations as context for AI Agents with SQLcl MCP Server…

Level Up Your Schema: Annotations for Object Metadata in Oracle AI Database

In Oracle AI Database, annotations provide a powerful way to attach metadata to database objects. Tables, columns, views, and domains are enhanced with self-describing, user-defined assets. This article introduces…

Can I build an Agent & still use SQLcl’s MCP Server? Yes! Previously on @thatjeffsmith... Can I build an Agent & still use SQLcl’s MCP Server? Yes!

Previously on @thatjeffsmith... Can I build an Agent & still use SQLcl’s MCP Server? Yes!

Natural Language SQL with Oracle MCP and LangChain4j

Want to build agentic applications with MCP integrations in Java? Sure! Just use Langchain4j. In this article, we'll build a natural language interface for your database orchestrated by Langchain4j agents, integrating Oracle's SQLcl MCP server…

Spring Cloud Config: JDBC Backend & Oracle AI Database

Spring Cloud Config's JDBC backend stores application properties in your database, providing a simple method to serve configuration properties to all your Spring Boot apps. Client → Config Server → Oracle DB Client → Config Server → Oracle DB…

Spatial Data in Oracle AI Database Spatial data describes the shape, location, and relationships of objects or points - whether virtual or in the real world. It powers everything from mapping and logistics to proximity search and location-aware applications. In Oracle AI Database, spatial is a first-class data type. You store it, index it, query it, and join it alongside your relational, JSON, and vector data…

Spatial Data in Oracle AI Database

Spatial data describes the shape, location, and relationships of objects or points - whether virtual or in the real world. It powers everything from mapping and logistics to proximity search and location-aware applications. In Oracle AI Database, spatial is a…

AI Optimizer & Toolkit: test and generate apps In this article, we'll explore automated testing with the Oracle AI Optimizer & Toolkit, and then generate Python LangChain or Java Spring AI applications from our tested AI configurations. What is the Oracle AI Optimizer & Toolkit? It’s a free and open-source tool designed to make it easier for developers and data engineers to build, benchmark, and optimize AI workflows running on Oracle Database.

AI Optimizer & Toolkit: test and generate apps

In this article, we'll explore automated testing with the Oracle AI Optimizer & Toolkit, and then generate Python LangChain or Java Spring AI applications from our tested AI configurations. What is the Oracle AI Optimizer & Toolkit? It’s a free and…

Unlocking Session Visibility with Oracle Client Info Monitoring database interactions is critical for performance tuning, debugging, and security. With Oracle AI Database, you can attach client metadata to connections; such as client identifiers, module and action names. Client metadata can be queried from views like V$SESSION to see where your application is interacting with the database. In this article, we'll build a sample Spring Boot application that integrates client info into database connections.

Unlocking Session Visibility with Oracle Client Info

Monitoring database interactions is critical for performance tuning, debugging, and security. With Oracle AI Database, you can attach client metadata to connections; such as client identifiers, module and action names. Client metadata can be…