Advanced Prompt Patterns
Prompt engineering has evolved into a rigid software discipline. Master the architectural patterns of prompting to yield deterministic, high-quality code from unpredictable LLMs.
Chain of Thought (CoT)
LLMs often fail at complex logic if asked to provide the final answer immediately. By adding the phrase 'Think step by step' or explicitly creating a <thinking> block, the model is forced to allocate computation to the reasoning process before writing the code, drastically reducing hallucinations.
Few-Shot Formatting
If you need JSON output, don't just describe the JSON. Provide 3 exact examples of the input-output pairs. LLMs are pattern-matching engines; few-shot examples anchor their probability distribution, ensuring the output matches your schema perfectly.