TutorialsPatternsField notes

Notes from the graph & GenAI frontier.

Tutorials, patterns and field notes on building GraphRAG systems, knowledge graphs and LLM agents on Neo4j — written by the people who build them.

12 posts · 3 topics · something new every week

Browse Posts

Find your next read

12 posts
Cypher

Writing Cypher Queries That Don't Lose Your Data

The query trap that hides your newest data, and the query shape that brings it back.

KOKemi OjogbedeJul 29, 20269 min read
Cypher

SQL to Cypher - 10 Queries You Already Know

You already know how to write these queries. This article shows you what they look like when the joins go away.

JMJeremy MorganJul 29, 202616 min read

Writing and Reading the 2026 World Cup Data with Cypher

Load the 48 teams of the 2026 World Cup into a free AuraDB instance and query them back, learning the core of Cypher from first principles.

AOAlfred OtiJul 28, 20269 min read

Six Degrees of Ayrton Senna: Learn Neo4j by Connecting 75 Years of Formula 1

Learn Neo4j and graph databases by building an F1 teammate network from real Formula 1 data and using Cypher to connect Max Verstappen to Juan Manuel Fangio.

JMJeremy MorganJul 23, 202615 min read
GenAI

RAG vs GraphRAG - Two Retrievers, One Question

Same movie question, two retrievers, two answers. See how GraphRAG beats plain vector RAG on Neo4j's recommendations dataset, then learn to build it.

MOMartin OhanlonJul 22, 20264 min read
Aura

EPIC: The Musical vs Nolan's The Odyssey - One Story, Visualised as a Graph

How does Christopher Nolan's film compare to EPIC: The Musical? I mapped every plot thread and character of Homer's poem in a graph database to find out.

KOKemi OjogbedeJul 17, 202621 min read
Cypher

TIL: Cypher has a format() function for dates and times

A deprecation warning taught me that Cypher now formats dates, times, and durations natively. No APOC required.

ACAdam CowleyJul 16, 20264 min read

Thinking in Graphs: Modelling the 2026 World Cup as a Property Graph

Learn how to model the 2026 World Cup as a Neo4j property graph, from first principles to a production ready schema.

AOAlfred OtiJul 15, 202616 min read
Cypher

Replacing your APOC Periodic Iterate with CALL {} IN TRANSACTIONS

apoc.periodic.iterate is deprecated in Cypher 25. Learn how to rewrite your queries with CALL {} IN TRANSACTIONS.

ACAdam CowleyJul 14, 20265 min read
Cypher

How Cypher Graph Types Kept Our AI-Generated Queries Honest During a Migration

We rebuilt GraphAcademy against the same Neo4j database. Graph types made sure AI-generated Cypher could not drift from the data model.

ACAdam CowleyJul 6, 20264 min read
Aura

A Real Neo4j Instance for Every Learner

How GraphAcademy gives every learner their own running Neo4j database.

MOMartin OhanlonJul 3, 20264 min read

Introducing the New GraphAcademy

Our first full redesign since 2024 — with teams, a revamped Neo4j Fundamentals course, editable data models, and a new onboarding assistant.

ACAdam CowleyJun 30, 20264 min read