The Missing Guide to Prompt Engineering(appetals.com)
appetals.com
The Missing Guide to Prompt Engineering
https://appetals.com/promptguide/
6 comments
Not AI generated. I initially thought of giving citations. It's all my study notes.
I actually found the citations on the last page: https://appetals.com/promptguide/references/
If it's not AI generated there's something very weird about your writing style.
This page in particular comes across as straight up LLM hallucination: https://appetals.com/promptguide/resources-and-tools-for-pro... - it lists "Prompt Engineering Discord" and "LinkedIn Prompt Engineering Groups" without providing links to anything, then lists "Legal Prompts Library" and "Marketing Prompts Collection" and "Developer Prompts Repository" under "Industry-Specific Collections", each with three bullet points and again without linking to anything.
If it's not AI generated there's something very weird about your writing style.
This page in particular comes across as straight up LLM hallucination: https://appetals.com/promptguide/resources-and-tools-for-pro... - it lists "Prompt Engineering Discord" and "LinkedIn Prompt Engineering Groups" without providing links to anything, then lists "Legal Prompts Library" and "Marketing Prompts Collection" and "Developer Prompts Repository" under "Industry-Specific Collections", each with three bullet points and again without linking to anything.
I'm a bit tired of prompting guides that basically revamp https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.06608
There's other criticism here about the writing quality (AI generated) but it's also quite out of date content-wise.
> Start with a basic prompt >Add Chain-of-Thought reasoning >Implement self-criticism >Add format constraints >Compare the quality and reliability of results
The 'techniques' are incredibly basic and Chain of thought isn't really relevant today considering there are models with COT 'baked in' i.e. the 'thinking mode' class of models.
> Start with a basic prompt >Add Chain-of-Thought reasoning >Implement self-criticism >Add format constraints >Compare the quality and reliability of results
The 'techniques' are incredibly basic and Chain of thought isn't really relevant today considering there are models with COT 'baked in' i.e. the 'thinking mode' class of models.
That being said I would love a up to date prompt engineering guide for getting the most out of the latest models in July 2025.
There doesn't seem to be too many incantations like there were before "think step by step".
The best thing I have found to use is meta prompting i.e. make a prompt designed to create prompts, and then use that resulting prompt to make specific targeted prompts.
You can then store these as custom GPTS in chatGPT or Claude projects.
There doesn't seem to be too many incantations like there were before "think step by step".
The best thing I have found to use is meta prompting i.e. make a prompt designed to create prompts, and then use that resulting prompt to make specific targeted prompts.
You can then store these as custom GPTS in chatGPT or Claude projects.
Why have so many non-engineering things become "engineering"?
Prompting -> "prompt engineering".
"sudo make me a sandwich" -> privilege-escalation engineering while process engineering a food engineer.
Prompting -> "prompt engineering".
"sudo make me a sandwich" -> privilege-escalation engineering while process engineering a food engineer.
> This is prompt engineering. Though the term suggests something mechanical, something reducible to formulas and best practices, the reality proves more nuanced—perhaps more human—than we'd care to admit
Ah nothing like a double emdash early to know that the page is not worth reading.
Ah nothing like a double emdash early to know that the page is not worth reading.
I am waiting for the workaround:
generated_prompt.replace("—","-")
before posting.
generated_prompt.replace("—","-")
before posting.
Prompt engineering isn't going anywhere. People keep saying it's dead, that the next model will make it obsolete. They said the same thing about ChatGPT 4, then Claude, then Gemini Pro. Even though the AI models are becoming more powerful each day, a poorly prompted AI response could hinder your ability to get the right results.
[deleted]
There are places where it includes citation references like [15] (search for "on complex problems" on https://appetals.com/promptguide/advanced-techniques-for-pow... ) that are just text, they don't resolve to anything.
Other places repeat the same point twice for no apparent reason - the "Context window" section on https://appetals.com/promptguide/understanding-the-machine-m...
I spotted a few "not X but Y" constructions, like "You'll learn to communicate with AI like a pro, not like someone shouting into the void."
I don't think reading this is a good use of your time.