The practice of writing prompts, system messages and examples that guide what a model produces, leaving its weights untouched.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains Prompt engineering in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Chat message roles
Labels on chat messages: instructions go under system, the person's input under user, the model's previous answers under assistant, and results returned by a called tool under tool (or function).
- Agents (classic) API
First-generation Foundry Agent Service API, based on threads, messages and runs. It is deprecated, replaced by conversations and responses, and retires on 31 March 2027.
- Model parameters
The weights a model learns in training, which together hold what it knows. How many there are is what distinguishes a small language model from a large one.