6 Prompt Patterns You Can Use Right Away at Work

I've been using LLMs for quite a while since last year for planning, documentation, and code work, and I've picked out only the patterns that actually worked. These are things that work regardless of whether the model is GPT or Claude.

• Give the role and constraints first: When you specify starting conditions like "You are a backend developer. Don't use external libraries. Split your answer into two blocks: code and explanation," the variance in results drops sharply.

• Include one example: Showing the desired output format once is often better than ten lines of explanation. Especially when extracting JSON or table formats.

• Break it into steps: Saying "Don't answer right away; first organize the premises, then answer" clearly reduces logical errors. It's especially noticeable in complex calculations or design.

• Make it say when it doesn't know: Adding "mark uncertain parts as guesses" reduces plausible-sounding lies. The downside is that answers become a bit frustrating.

• Have it critique itself: After getting a draft, run one more pass with "Point out 3 weak parts in this answer and fix them," and quality improves quite a bit.

• Specify length numerically: Be concrete, like "three paragraphs, three sentences each." "Short" almost never works.

In the end, prompts are a lot like requirements specs. Give vague input, get vague output. Please share any patterns you use.