Prompt Engineering: A Developer's Field Guide

Prompt engineering is the art and science of communicating effectively with LLMs.

Key Techniques - **System prompts**: Set the role and constraints upfront - **Few-shot examples**: Show the model what you expect - **Chain-of-thought**: Ask the model to reason step by step - **Output formatting**: Specify JSON, markdown, or structured output

Common Mistakes - Being too vague — LLMs need specificity - Ignoring temperature settings - Not testing edge cases

Best Practices Treat prompts like code: version them, test them, and iterate.