Dictionary term
Prompt Engineering
Also called prompt design · prompting
Prompt engineering is the practice of writing and iteratively testing a model's instructions, examples and output format so it consistently produces results that meet your requirements.
In plain English
Prompt engineering is learning how to ask an AI clearly so you get the answer you need every time, not just once.
Analogy
Like writing a clear brief for a contractor: the better the brief, the less rework.
Why it matters
Model output varies between runs, so a prompt that worked once can fail on the next input. Define success criteria, test the prompt against real examples, and change one thing at a time. For agents, this widens into context engineering.
In practice
A team rewrites the prompt behind its lead-qualification step, adding a role, three labelled examples and a JSON schema, then reruns 50 past leads to confirm accuracy went up before shipping it.
Related terms
Sources
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