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Prompt Engineering: First Principles

Stop copy-pasting tricks. Learn the four levers that make prompts actually work, and when to pull each.

The short version

Most "prompt engineering tips" are local optima. They help with one model on one day, then go stale. The four levers that don't go stale: **constraints**, **examples**, **decomposition**, and **verification**. Pull the right lever for the task and you'll get further than any list of tricks. The full guide walks through each lever with side-by-side examples, the 60-second test to know which one to pull, and a cheat sheet you can print.

Put it to work

From this guide to done

Read it, try it on real work, and make it yours.