Prompt Engineering Cheat Sheet

June 6, 2023 12 minute read

Principles

Write clear and specific intructions

Use delimiters

Triple quotes: “””
Triple backticks: ```
Triple dashes: —
Angle brackets: <>
XML tags:

Useful to avoid prompt injection.

prompt = f"""
Summarize the text delimited by triple backticks \ 
into a single sentence.
```{text}```

Ask for structured output

prompt = f"""
Generate a list of three made-up book titles along \ 
with their authors and genres. 
Provide them in JSON format with the following keys: 
book_id, title, author, genre.
"""

Check whether conditions are satisfied

Check assumptions required to do task.

prompt = f"""
You will be provided with text delimited by triple quotes. 
If it contains a sequence of instructions, \ 
re-write those instructions in the following format:

Step 1 - ...
Step 2 - …
…
Step N - …

If the text does not contain a sequence of instructions, \ 
then simply write \"No steps provided.\"

\"\"\"{text_1}\"\"\"
"""

Few-shot prompting

Give successful examples of completing task and the ask model to perform the task.

prompt = f"""
Your task is to answer in a consistent style.

<child>: Teach me about patience.

<grandparent>: The river that carves the deepest \ 
valley flows from a modest spring; the \ 
grandest symphony originates from a single note; \ 
the most intricate tapestry begins with a solitary thread.

<child>: Teach me about resilience.
"""

Give the model to think.

Specify the steps required to complete a task

prompt_1 = f"""
Perform the following actions: 
1 - Summarize the following text delimited by triple \
backticks with 1 sentence.
2 - Translate the summary into French.
3 - List each name in the French summary.
4 - Output a json object that contains the following \
keys: french_summary, num_names.

Separate your answers with line breaks.

Text:
```{text}```
"""

prompt_2 = f"""
Your task is to perform the following actions: 
1 - Summarize the following text delimited by 
  <> with 1 sentence.
2 - Translate the summary into French.
3 - List each name in the French summary.
4 - Output a json object that contains the 
  following keys: french_summary, num_names.

Use the following format:
Text: <text to summarize>
Summary: <summary>
Translation: <summary translation>
Names: <list of names in Italian summary>
Output JSON: <json with summary and num_names>

Text: <{text}>
"""

Instruct the model to work out its own solution before rushing to a conclusion

prompt = f"""
Determine if the student's solution is correct or not.

Question:
I'm building a solar power installation and I need \
 help working out the financials. 
- Land costs $100 / square foot
- I can buy solar panels for $250 / square foot
- I negotiated a contract for maintenance that will cost \ 
me a flat $100k per year, and an additional $10 / square \
foot
What is the total cost for the first year of operations 
as a function of the number of square feet.

Student's Solution:
Let x be the size of the installation in square feet.
Costs:
1. Land cost: 100x
2. Solar panel cost: 250x
3. Maintenance cost: 100,000 + 100x
Total cost: 100x + 250x + 100,000 + 100x = 450x + 100,000
"""

Improve with following prompt:

prompt = f"""
Your task is to determine if the student's solution \
is correct or not.
To solve the problem do the following:
- First, work out your own solution to the problem. 
- Then compare your solution to the student's solution \ 
and evaluate if the student's solution is correct or not. 
Don't decide if the student's solution is correct until 
you have done the problem yourself.

Use the following format:
Question:

question here

Student's solution:

student’s solution here

Actual solution:

steps to work out the solution and your solution here

Is the student's solution the same as actual solution \
just calculated:

yes or no

Student grade:

correct or incorrect


Question:

I’m building a solar power installation and I need help
working out the financials.

Land costs $100 / square foot
I can buy solar panels for $250 / square foot
I negotiated a contract for maintenance that will cost
me a flat $100k per year, and an additional $10 / square
foot What is the total cost for the first year of operations
as a function of the number of square feet.
```
Student's solution:
```
Let x be the size of the installation in square feet. Costs:
1. Land cost: 100x
2. Solar panel cost: 250x
3. Maintenance cost: 100,000 + 100x Total cost: 100x + 250x + 100,000 + 100x = 450x + 100,000 ``` Actual solution: “””

### Model Limitations: Hallucinations

Ask model to first find the relevant information from the text. Then ask it to use those quotes to answer the question. Having a way to trace the answer back to the source is helpful to reduce halluninations.

## Iterations

- Try something
- Analyze the result
- Clarify instructions


```python

prompt = f"""
Your task is to help a marketing team create a 
description for a retail website of a product based 
on a technical fact sheet.

Iteration1==>> Write a product description based on the information 
provided in the technical specifications delimited by 
triple backticks.

Iteration2==>> The description is intended for furniture retailers, 
so should be technical in nature and focus on the 
materials the product is constructed from.

Iteration3==>> At the end of the description, include every 7-character 
Product ID in the technical specification.

Iteration4==>> After the description, include a table that gives the 
product's dimensions. The table should have two columns.
In the first column include the name of the dimension. 
In the second column include the measurements in inches only.

Iteration5==>> Give the table the title 'Product Dimensions'.

Iteration6==>> Format everything as HTML that can be used in a website. 
Place the description in a <div> element.

Technical specifications: ```{fact_sheet_chair}```
"""

Summarization

Limits

prompt = f"""
Your task is to generate a short summary of a product \
review from an ecommerce site. 

Summarize the review below, delimited by triple 
backticks, in at most 30 words. 

Review: ```{prod_review}```
"""

Focus

# focus on shipment and delivery
prompt = f"""
Your task is to generate a short summary of a product \
review from an ecommerce site to give feedback to the \
Shipping deparmtment. 

Summarize the review below, delimited by triple 
backticks, in at most 30 words, and focusing on any aspects \
that mention shipping and delivery of the product. 

Review: ```{prod_review}```
"""

#focus on price

prompt = f"""
Your task is to generate a short summary of a product \
review from an ecommerce site to give feedback to the \
pricing deparmtment, responsible for determining the \
price of the product.  

Summarize the review below, delimited by triple 
backticks, in at most 30 words, and focusing on any aspects \
that are relevant to the price and perceived value. 

Review: ```{prod_review}```
"""

Extract Infomation

prompt = f"""
Your task is to extract relevant information from \ 
a product review from an ecommerce site to give \
feedback to the Shipping department. 

From the review below, delimited by triple quotes \
extract the information relevant to shipping and \ 
delivery. Limit to 30 words. 

Review: ```{prod_review}```
"""

Inferring

Sentiment

prompt = f"""
What is the sentiment of the following product review, 
which is delimited with triple backticks?

Review text: '''{lamp_review}'''
"""

# give a more concise answer
prompt = f"""
What is the sentiment of the following product review, 
which is delimited with triple backticks?

Give your answer as a single word, either "positive" \
or "negative".

Review text: '''{lamp_review}'''
"""

Emotions

prompt = f"""
Identify a list of emotions that the writer of the \
following review is expressing. Include no more than \
five items in the list. Format your answer as a list of \
lower-case words separated by commas.

Review text: '''{lamp_review}'''
"""

prompt = f"""
Is the writer of the following review expressing anger?\
The review is delimited with triple backticks. \
Give your answer as either yes or no.

Review text: '''{lamp_review}'''
"""

Extract Information

prompt = f"""
Identify the following items from the review text: 
- Item purchased by reviewer
- Company that made the item

The review is delimited with triple backticks. \
Format your response as a JSON object with \
"Item" and "Brand" as the keys. 
If the information isn't present, use "unknown" \
as the value.
Make your response as short as possible.
  
Review text: '''{lamp_review}'''
"""

## do multiple tasks at once
prompt = f"""
Identify the following items from the review text: 
- Sentiment (positive or negative)
- Is the reviewer expressing anger? (true or false)
- Item purchased by reviewer
- Company that made the item

The review is delimited with triple backticks. \
Format your response as a JSON object with \
"Sentiment", "Anger", "Item" and "Brand" as the keys.
If the information isn't present, use "unknown" \
as the value.
Make your response as short as possible.
Format the Anger value as a boolean.

Review text: '''{lamp_review}'''
"""

Infer Topics

prompt = f"""
Determine five topics that are being discussed in the \
following text, which is delimited by triple backticks.

Make each item one or two words long. 

Format your response as a list of items separated by commas.

Text sample: '''{story}'''
"""

prompt = f"""
Determine whether each item in the following list of \
topics is a topic in the text below, which
is delimited with triple backticks.

Give your answer as list with 0 or 1 for each topic.\

List of topics: art, science, health, natura

Text sample: '''{story}'''
"""

Transforming

Translation

prompt = f"""
Translate the following English text to Spanish: \ 
```Hi, I would like to order a blender```
"""

prompt = f"""
Tell me which language this is: 
```Combien coûte le lampadaire?```
"""

prompt = f"""
Translate the following  text to French and Spanish
and English pirate: \
```I want to order a basketball```
"""

prompt = f"""
Translate the following text to Spanish in both the \
formal and informal forms: 
'Would you like to order a pillow?'
"""

Tone

prompt = f"""
Translate the following from slang to a business letter: 
'Dude, This is Joe, check out this spec on this standing lamp.'
"""

Format Conversion

data_json = { "resturant employees" :[ 
    {"name":"Shyam", "email":"shyamjaiswal@gmail.com"},
    {"name":"Bob", "email":"bob32@gmail.com"},
    {"name":"Jai", "email":"jai87@gmail.com"}
]}

prompt = f"""
Translate the following python dictionary from JSON to an HTML \
table with column headers and title: {data_json}
"""

Spellcheck/Grammer Check

text = [ 
  "The girl with the black and white puppies have a ball.",  # The girl has a ball.
  "Yolanda has her notebook.", # ok
  "Its going to be a long day. Does the car need it’s oil changed?",  # Homonyms
  "Their goes my freedom. There going to bring they’re suitcases.",  # Homonyms
  "Your going to need you’re notebook.",  # Homonyms
  "That medicine effects my ability to sleep. Have you heard of the butterfly affect?", # Homonyms
  "This phrase is to cherck chatGPT for speling abilitty"  # spelling
]
for t in text:
    prompt = f"""Proofread and correct the following text
    and rewrite the corrected version. If you don't find
    and errors, just say "No errors found". Don't use 
    any punctuation around the text:
    ```{t}```"""
    response = get_completion(prompt)
    print(response)

Show differences.

text = f"""
Got this for my daughter for her birthday cuz she keeps taking \
mine from my room.  Yes, adults also like pandas too.  She takes \
it everywhere with her, and it's super soft and cute.  One of the \
ears is a bit lower than the other, and I don't think that was \
designed to be asymmetrical. It's a bit small for what I paid for it \
though. I think there might be other options that are bigger for \
the same price.  It arrived a day earlier than expected, so I got \
to play with it myself before I gave it to my daughter.
"""
prompt = f"proofread and correct this review: ```{text}```"
response = get_completion(prompt)
print(response)

from redlines import Redlines

diff = Redlines(text,response)
display(Markdown(diff.output_markdown))

Correct and transform.

prompt = f"""
proofread and correct this review. Make it more compelling. 
Ensure it follows APA style guide and targets an advanced reader. 
Output in markdown format.
Text: ```{text}```
"""

Emails

prompt = f"""
You are a customer service AI assistant.
Your task is to send an email reply to a valued customer.
Given the customer email delimited by ```, \
Generate a reply to thank the customer for their review.
If the sentiment is positive or neutral, thank them for \
their review.
If the sentiment is negative, apologize and suggest that \
they can reach out to customer service. 
Make sure to use specific details from the review.
Write in a concise and professional tone.
Sign the email as `AI customer agent`.
Customer review: ```{review}```
Review sentiment: {sentiment}
"""

Chatbot

Orderbot

def collect_messages(_):
    prompt = inp.value_input
    inp.value = ''
    context.append({'role':'user', 'content':f"{prompt}"})
    response = get_completion_from_messages(context) 
    context.append({'role':'assistant', 'content':f"{response}"})
    panels.append(
        pn.Row('User:', pn.pane.Markdown(prompt, width=600)))
    panels.append(
        pn.Row('Assistant:', pn.pane.Markdown(response, width=600, style={'background-color': '#F6F6F6'})))
 
    return pn.Column(*panels)

import panel as pn  # GUI
pn.extension()

panels = [] # collect display 

context = [ {'role':'system', 'content':"""
You are OrderBot, an automated service to collect orders for a pizza restaurant. \
You first greet the customer, then collects the order, \
and then asks if it's a pickup or delivery. \
You wait to collect the entire order, then summarize it and check for a final \
time if the customer wants to add anything else. \
If it's a delivery, you ask for an address. \
Finally you collect the payment.\
Make sure to clarify all options, extras and sizes to uniquely \
identify the item from the menu.\
You respond in a short, very conversational friendly style. \
The menu includes \
pepperoni pizza  12.95, 10.00, 7.00 \
cheese pizza   10.95, 9.25, 6.50 \
eggplant pizza   11.95, 9.75, 6.75 \
fries 4.50, 3.50 \
greek salad 7.25 \
Toppings: \
extra cheese 2.00, \
mushrooms 1.50 \
sausage 3.00 \
canadian bacon 3.50 \
AI sauce 1.50 \
peppers 1.00 \
Drinks: \
coke 3.00, 2.00, 1.00 \
sprite 3.00, 2.00, 1.00 \
bottled water 5.00 \
"""} ]  # accumulate messages


inp = pn.widgets.TextInput(value="Hi", placeholder='Enter text here…')
button_conversation = pn.widgets.Button(name="Chat!")

interactive_conversation = pn.bind(collect_messages, button_conversation)

dashboard = pn.Column(
    inp,
    pn.Row(button_conversation),
    pn.panel(interactive_conversation, loading_indicator=True, height=300),
)

## make a summary of previos order
messages =  context.copy()
messages.append(
{'role':'system', 'content':'create a json summary of the previous food order. Itemize the price for each item\
 The fields should be 1) pizza, include size 2) list of toppings 3) list of drinks, include size   4) list of sides include size  5)total price '},    
)
 #The fields should be 1) pizza, price 2) list of toppings 3) list of drinks, include size include price  4) list of sides include size include price, 5)total price '},    

response = get_completion_from_messages(messages, temperature=0)
print(response)

References

Deep Learning AI Course

Share on

Twitter Facebook LinkedIn

Huseyin ABANOZ