ai

Prompt

The instruction or question you give an AI model. Wording dramatically affects output.

Definition

A prompt is the input given to an LLM - the text instruction that triggers a response. The quality of the prompt directly determines the quality of the output. Effective prompts: provide clear role and context, specify output format, give examples (few-shot), and break complex tasks into steps. The same model produces dramatically different output from a one-line prompt versus a structured 200-word prompt. Prompt design is a real skill - and for repeatable workflows, prompts should be versioned and tested like code.

In your business

  • Save and version successful prompts - they're reusable assets
  • Include examples in the prompt for any task where format matters
  • When output is wrong, fix the prompt before blaming the model

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