What will I get if I subscribe to this Specialization?

When you enroll in the course, you get access to all of the courses in the Specialization, and you earn a certificate when you complete the work. Your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile.

Is financial aid available?

Yes. In select learning programs, you can apply for financial aid or a scholarship if you can’t afford the enrollment fee. If fin aid or scholarship is available for your learning program selection, you’ll find a link to apply on the description page.

HelixDB From Zero

4 days left! Save on skills that make you shine with 40% off 3 months of Coursera Plus. Save now

HelixDB From Zero

Instructor: Noah Gift

Included with

Learn more

6 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

Intermediate level

Recommended experience

1 hour to complete

Flexible schedule

Learn at your own pace

6 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

Intermediate level

Recommended experience

1 hour to complete

Flexible schedule

Learn at your own pace

What you'll learn

Apply the three-element HelixQL schema (N::, V::, E::) and the four-keyword QUERY shape compiled into typed Rust handlers.
Build a hybrid-RAG pipeline with SearchV and ::In<EmbeddingOf>, shipped as a typed Rust client.
Compose graph traversal and vector search in one HelixQL query language and one engine.

Details to know

Shareable certificate

Add to your LinkedIn profile

See how employees at top companies are mastering in-demand skills

Learn more about Coursera for Business

logos of Petrobras, TATA, Danone, Capgemini, P&G and L'Oreal

There are 6 modules in this course

Stop stitching three databases together. HelixDB is a Rust-native graph plus vector engine that holds your nodes, your embeddings, your typed edges, and your key-value documents in one process — no separate Postgres, no separate Qdrant, no separate Neo4j. This course walks a Rust-fluent engineer from helix init through a typed HelixQL schema, the helix check and helix compile pre-deploy gates, side-by-side graph traversal and vector search in the same query language, and a typed Rust client that calls a live HelixDB instance with four runtime contracts. Every primitive you meet is wired into a working .hx schema and a running engine you can install in one command. Module 4 puts graph traversal verbs (Out, In, WHERE, ORDER, RANGE) and vector top-k search side by side in the same query language, and adds ShortestPathDijkstras with composable weight expressions for cost-aware routing. You finish with the canonical hybrid-RAG pattern — SearchV returns top-k embeddings, then a typed edge climbs back to the source documents — shipped as a typed Rust client (helix-rs plus serde) with four runtime assertion contracts. The course closes with an honest read on where HelixDB is the wrong choice: columnar OLAP, Spark execution semantics, multi-tenant analytical warehouses.

The unified-engine pitch — why one process holding graph + vector + KV + document beats stitching Postgres, Qdrant, and Neo4j at the application layer. You will see the four-layer Helix stack and the honest boundary where HelixDB is the wrong choice.

What's included

3 videos3 readings1 assignment

The three-element schema in HelixQL and the four-keyword QUERY shape. Walks N::, V::, E:: declarations, INDEX + UNIQUE INDEX, field types, default values, and a queries.hx file end to end.

What's included

2 videos2 readings1 assignment

The helix-cli pipeline walked verb by verb. helix init scaffolds the project; helix check is the lint pass; helix compile is the type-safe lower-to-Rust artifact; helix push dev deploys to a local instance on port 6969 where every QUERY becomes an HTTP endpoint.

What's included

1 video2 readings1 assignment

Graph traversal (Out, In, WHERE, ORDER<Asc>, RANGE) and vector search (SearchV) in the same query language. ShortestPathDijkstras with composable weight expressions (ADD, MUL, POW, SQRT) for cost-aware routing.

What's included

3 videos2 readings1 assignment

3 videosTotal 4 minutes

Traversal — Out, In, WHERE, ORDER, RANGE1 minute
SearchV — Vector Similarity1 minute
ShortestPathDijkstras1 minute

2 readingsTotal 2 minutes

Key Terms: Graph Traversal and Vector Search Side by Side1 minute
Reflection: Graph Traversal and Vector Search Side by Side1 minute

1 assignmentTotal 10 minutes

Ungraded Quiz: Graph Traversal and Vector Search Side by Side10 minutes

The canonical hybrid-RAG schema (Doc → Embedding → EmbeddingOf) and the hit-to-context traversal. BM25 plus vector reciprocal-rank fusion via the built-in reranker. Closes with a typed Rust client that validates four runtime contracts against a live HelixDB instance.

What's included

3 videos3 readings

Synthesize what you learned across the course. A short reading prepares you for the graded quiz, followed by a 5-question scenario-based assessment that connects schema design, helix-cli, traversal, vector search, and the hybrid-RAG client. Closes with next steps and references.

What's included

2 readings1 assignment

Instructor

Noah Gift

Pragmatic AI Labs

48 Courses3,456 learners

Offered by

Pragmatic AI Labs

Why people choose Coursera for their career

Felipe M.

Learner since 2018

"To be able to take courses at my own pace and rhythm has been an amazing experience. I can learn whenever it fits my schedule and mood."

Jennifer J.

Learner since 2020

"I directly applied the concepts and skills I learned from my courses to an exciting new project at work."

Larry W.

Learner since 2021

"When I need courses on topics that my university doesn't offer, Coursera is one of the best places to go."

Chaitanya A.

"Learning isn't just about being better at your job: it's so much more than that. Coursera allows me to learn without limits."

Frequently asked questions

No. The course names the three-service stack as the problem HelixDB solves, but you do not need prior experience with any one of them. You DO need to be comfortable in Rust — at the level of having written a small service with serde, tokio, and an HTTP client.

Partly. HelixDB carries vectors as a first-class primitive via V::Embedding and SearchV, so the vector half of RAG is identical. The difference is the graph half — ::In<EmbeddingOf> traversals climb from vector hits back to source documents inside the same query, with no second connection pool, no second schema, and no second transaction.

Honest answer: anything that wants columnar OLAP execution semantics — Spark, DuckDB, or a multi-tenant analytical warehouse. HelixDB is built for graph-shaped and vector-shaped workloads in one process. Module 1 names the boundary explicitly so you can rule it in or out for your stack before you commit.

To access the course materials, assignments and to earn a Certificate, you will need to purchase the Certificate experience when you enroll in a course. You can try a Free Trial instead, or apply for Financial Aid. The course may offer 'Full Course, No Certificate' instead. This option lets you see all course materials, submit required assessments, and get a final grade. This also means that you will not be able to purchase a Certificate experience.