If you're analyzing real documents at scale—contracts, government notices, quality manuals, or industry standards—you need precision beyond fuzzy search. Here's a practical approach with GraphRAG powered by my Dream Stack: **Microsoft Agent Framework + Microsoft Foundry + Neo4j**. In practice, this combination consistently yields higher‑quality answers because the graph preserves relationships that vectors alone miss. ## Why GraphRAG for Contract Analysis? Here's the problem: traditional RAG hits semantic search on a vector database, retrieves some chunks, and hands them to an LLM. It works, but it's flat. You lose relationships, structure, and context. **GraphRAG changes this.** By storing contract data in a Neo4j graph database, we preserve the relationships: - Which organizations are parties to which contracts? - What clauses exist across different agreements? - How are governing laws connected to incorporation countries? Then we combine three retrieval strategies: 1. **Structured queries** - Direct Cypher queries for precise data 2. **Vector search** - Semantic similarity on embedded text excerpts 3. **Text-to-Cypher** - Natural language → graph queries The agent decides which tool to use. That's the orchestration layer doing real work. ## The Dream Stack: Microsoft Agent Framework + Microsoft Foundry + Neo4j I wanted to keep this demo focused on the agent pattern, so I used: - **Microsoft Agent Framework** - My go-to for building production-ready agents with Azure OpenAI Responses API - **Microsoft Foundry** - GPT-5 for reasoning and embeddings (Responses API + Embeddings) powering orchestration - **Neo4j** - Graph database with native vector search (I used Aura Free, works great) The architecture is simple: ```mermaid flowchart LR A[PDFs] --> B[LLM Extract JSON] --> C[Build Knowledge Graph] --> E[Neo4j] F[Agent] --> G[GraphRAG Tool] --> E ```

## Building the Agent: Hands-On Walkthrough ### 1. Define Your Graph Schema First, design your knowledge graph. For contracts, I modeled: **Nodes:** - `Agreement` - Contract documents - `Organization` - Companies involved - `Country` - Jurisdictions - `ContractClause` - Individual clauses - `ClauseType` - Categories (Price Restrictions, Insurance, etc.) - `Excerpt` - Text chunks with embeddings **Relationships:** - `IS_PARTY_TO` - Organizations → Agreements - `HAS_CLAUSE` - Agreements → Clauses - `HAS_EXCERPT` - Clauses → Text excerpts - `GOVERNED_BY_LAW`, `INCORPORATION_IN` - Jurisdictional links ![Neo4j Graph Schema](/images/content/agent-framework-graphrag-neo4j/graph-schema.png) ### 2. Create Agent Tools with GraphRAG Queries Here's where it gets interesting. I wrapped Neo4j queries as agent function tools: ```python copy filename="contract_tools.py" from contract_graphrag.contract_service import ContractSearchService class ContractTools: """Agent function tools for contract review.""" def __init__(self): self.service = ContractSearchService() def get_contract(self, contract_id: int) -> dict: """Retrieve full details for a specific contract.""" return self.service.get_contract_by_id(contract_id) def get_contracts_by_organization(self, org_name: str) -> list[dict]: """Find all contracts where an organization is a party.""" return self.service.get_contracts_by_organization(org_name) def search_contracts_by_similarity(self, query: str, limit: int = 5) -> list[dict]: """Semantic search across contract excerpts using vector embeddings.""" return self.service.semantic_search(query, limit) def query_with_natural_language(self, question: str) -> dict: """Convert natural language to Cypher query and execute.""" return self.service.text_to_cypher(question) ``` Each tool maps to a different retrieval strategy. The agent decides which one fits the user's question. ### 3. Wire It to Microsoft Agent Framework Creating the agent is straightforward with Azure OpenAI Responses API: ```python copy filename="agent_config.py" from agent_framework.azure import AzureOpenAIResponsesClient from azure.identity import DefaultAzureCredential credential = DefaultAzureCredential() agent = AzureOpenAIResponsesClient(credential=credential).create_agent( instructions="""You are a contract review assistant with access to a knowledge graph of agreements, organizations, clauses, and jurisdictions. Use your tools to answer questions accurately. Prefer structured queries when IDs or names are known, semantic search for conceptual questions, and natural language queries for complex relationships.""", name="ContractReviewAgent", tools=[ tools.get_contract, tools.get_contracts_by_organization, tools.search_contracts_by_similarity, tools.query_with_natural_language, ], ) ``` The agent instructions guide tool selection. I kept them concise—no need for prompt engineering gymnastics here. ### 4. Query the Agent Here's what happens when you ask: **"Find contracts for AT&T with Price Restrictions but no Insurance clauses"** 1. Agent calls `get_contracts_by_organization("AT&T")` 2. For each contract, checks clause types 3. Filters results 4. Returns structured answer Or: **"Show me contracts mentioning product delivery requirements"** 1. Agent calls `search_contracts_by_similarity("product delivery requirements")` 2. Vector search finds semantically similar excerpts 3. Returns matching contracts with highlighted excerpts The orchestration is automatic. The agent picks the right tool. ## What I Learned: Tradeoffs & Honest Reflections **What works really well:** - 🚀 **Graph relationships beat flat vectors** - Questions like "which organizations share governing law?" are trivial with Cypher - 🤖 **Tool orchestration is powerful** - The agent switching between structured/semantic/natural language queries feels like real intelligence - 💡 **DefaultAzureCredential is clean** - No credential juggling; `az login` just works - 🛠️ **Neo4j Aura Free is perfect for demos** - Free tier, cloud-hosted, vector search included **What's still challenging:** - Text-to-Cypher needs guardrails - LLMs can generate invalid queries; I added retry logic and validation - Graph design is upfront work - You need to model relationships carefully or queries fall apart - Context window limits - I chunk excerpts to ~500 tokens; longer contracts need pagination **Not production-ready yet:** - No multi-turn conversation memory (agent resets each query) - No guardrails for PII/sensitive clauses - Limited error handling for malformed PDFs - Neo4j connection pooling could be better This is a demo to explore the pattern, not a product. If you're building something similar, expect to add auth, monitoring, and proper error handling. ## Try It Yourself I've open-sourced the full project with MIT license:

Quick start (requires Python 3.12+, Azure OpenAI, and Neo4j): ```bash copy # Clone and setup git clone https://github.com/iLoveAgents/agent-framework-graphrag-neo4j.git cd agent-framework-graphrag-neo4j uv sync # Configure environment cp .env.example .env # Edit .env with your Azure OpenAI and Neo4j credentials # Authenticate with Azure az login # Build the graph (sample contracts included) uv run 02_build_graph.py # Run the agent uv run 03_agent.py --demo ``` The demo runs six queries to showcase different retrieval patterns. Or launch the browser UI: ```bash copy uv run devui.py ``` Opens at `http://127.0.0.1:8080` with a visual trace viewer—super helpful for debugging tool calls. ## Where GraphRAG Fits in Enterprise Workflows This isn't just a demo pattern—I see real enterprise use cases: **Legal/Compliance:** - Contract risk analysis across thousands of agreements - Clause comparison and anomaly detection - Regulatory compliance checks with graph traversals **Knowledge Management:** - Technical documentation with linked concepts - Customer support with product relationship graphs - Internal policy networks **Financial Services:** - Investment portfolio relationships - Risk correlation analysis - Regulatory reporting with structured queries The key is: **when relationships matter as much as content, GraphRAG wins.** ## Let's Build Together 🤝 What are you building with GraphRAG? Have you combined knowledge graphs with agent orchestration? I'd love to hear your stories: - What retrieval strategies work best for your domain? - How do you handle graph schema evolution? - Any gotchas with text-to-Cypher generation? Drop a comment, open an issue on GitHub, or reach out on LinkedIn. We're building in public and sharing what we learn. **Let's make agent orchestration practical for everyone.** 🚀

graphrag

Latest posts tagged “graphrag”

Building GraphRAG Contract Agents: Combining Knowledge Graphs with Microsoft Agent Framework

Explore More Content