This is a 36-page conceptual guide aimed at developers new to the platform.

The document is organized into four main sections:
Section 1 — Introduction to Vantiq Applications establishes the core concept: Vantiq is a platform for building Real-Time, Event-Driven, Situationally Aware Intelligent Systems. It walks through the four layers of intelligence available — deterministic rules, predictive/ML AI, generative AI, and agentic AI — and explains how they compose together. There’s also coverage of collaborative application patterns: human-in-the-loop workflows, situational awareness, and AI agents as participants in processes.
Section 2 — Development Methodology introduces Vantiq’s service-based architecture and contrasts it with traditional approaches. It covers the two client types (Vantiq-built and externally-built) and how services are the central organizing unit of an application.
Section 3 — Service Types categorizes the five kinds of services you’ll build: Integration Services (event-based and API-based), Event-Driven Business Services, Utility Services, Data Services, and AI Agent Services.
Section 4 — Application Development Workflow covers both top-down (System Modeler → Design Modeler → Service Builder → Client Builder → Testing → Deployment → Grafana monitoring) and bottom-up development approaches, with a walkthrough of each IDE tool in the process.
In short, it’s the conceptual onboarding document you’d hand a developer before they write their first line of VAIL — focused on what Vantiq applications are and how to think about building them, rather than syntax or configuration specifics.

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