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brexhq
prompt-engineering
AI & Machine Learning2023–2024
brexhq / prompt-engineering

prompt-engineering

Tips and tricks for working with Large Language Models like OpenAI's GPT-4.

7Distinct people
10Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
9.6KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Tips and tricks for working with Large Language Models like OpenAI's GPT-4.

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

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No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

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This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by month10 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2023-04-27 16:25:04 UTC to 2024-02-07 16:54:20 UTC.

0123452023-04-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-05-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 commentsApr 20232023-05-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-06-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 2 submissions, 3 comments2023-06-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-07-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2023-07-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-08-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2023-08-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-09-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2023-09-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-10-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 commentsSep 20232023-10-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-11-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2023-11-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-12-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2023-12-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-02-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2024-02-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-03-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 commentsFeb 2024

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
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PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
Apr 20232023-04-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-05-01 00:00:00 UTC110
May 20232023-05-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-06-01 00:00:00 UTC523
Jun 20232023-06-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-07-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Jul 20232023-07-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-08-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Aug 20232023-08-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-09-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Sep 20232023-09-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-10-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Oct 20232023-10-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-11-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Nov 20232023-11-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-12-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Dec 20232023-12-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jan 20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-02-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Feb 20242024-02-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-03-01 00:00:00 UTC202

What Hacker News says

10 sources
I recognize there's plenty of catnip here when it comes to calling this "engineering" or not, however, whatever you want to call it (prompt fiddling?), the techniques are crucial if you want to achieve reasonably consistent output from current-state LLMs. As models improve concerns about context window limitations will be reduced and it will be easier to discern user intent. These are good straight-to-the-point guides: - Prompt Engineering by BrexHQ: https://github.com/brexhq/prompt-engineering - OpenAI guidance: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6654000-best-practices-f... - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/gpt-prompt-engineering... - (great examples): https://www.deeplearning.ai/short-courses/chatgpt-prompt-eng... - (~hr) Karpathy talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZQun8Y4L2A tl;dr: - Begin with the best and most forgiving mo
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del available, optimizing it later if necessary. - Write your prompts in a clear, specific, and detailed manner - Be mindful, however, of the tradeoff between including more detail and increasing latency or cost. - If you're doing any complex reasoning, ask the model to show its work, help "stretch out" computation over more tokens - "Escape" any included or quoted text properly to avoid confusing the model. - Keep track of your token budget, considering the context window in conversations and response length. - Employ an iterative process of measuring, adjusting, and improving your prompt engineering techniques.
In A prompt pattern catalog to enhance prompt engineering with ChatGPT
Author of the guide here. I attempt to address this in the "Why do we need prompt engineering?"[^1] section. > ... we used an analogy of prompts as the “source code” that a language model “interprets”. Prompt engineering is the art of writing prompts to get the language model to do what we want it to do – just like software engineering is the art of writing source code to get computers to do what we want them to do. Borrowing from Oxford Dictionary, the definition of "engineering" is: > the branch of science and technology concerned with the design, building, and use of engines, machines, and structures. I think it's pretty reasonable to say that "prompt engineering" falls squarely in the realm of "technology concerned with the use of a machine". [^1]: https://github.com/brexhq/prompt-engineering#why-do-we-need-...
In Brex’s Prompt Engineering Guide

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