Meredith Shubel writes that Vercel published `design.md`, a public prompt file that cut agent-generated design failures by 57% across 200+ agent runs, though none of the six tested pages was ship-ready. The system has three layers: a prompt encoding design judgment, a public stylesheet for mechanical layout rules, and an evaluation loop that converts human feedback into deterministic checks. A Slack-based agent (`design-agent`) consolidates weekly feedback from GitHub and Figma into proposed guidance updates.
- The comparison test used Codex with GPT-5.5: 39 failure instances with `design.md` versus 91 without.
- Vercel's first attempt to port its internal "product design" skill to a public prompt failed because subjective design language was interpreted differently by each model.
- Recurring complaint counts are tracked over time; if a fix doesn't reduce its count, the fix is flagged for refinement.
- The comparison test used Codex with GPT-5.5: 39 failure instances with `design.md` versus 91 without.
- Vercel's first attempt to port its internal "product design" skill to a public prompt failed because subjective design language was interpreted differently by each model.
- Recurring complaint counts are tracked over time; if a fix doesn't reduce its count, the fix is flagged for refinement.
Mahnoor Faisal writes that OpenAI Codex tends to over-engineer simple tasks by refactoring surrounding code, adding abstractions and defensive guards not requested, and she fixes this by appending a single boundary line to every prompt telling it to make the smallest change that fully solves the task and not add extras unless strictly required.
- The same one-line tweak previously improved prompts for Claude, Claude Code, NotebookLM and ChatGPT
- Over-scoping complaints are common on Reddit, especially with GPT-5.6 Sol
- OpenAI'''s focus on long-running autonomous work makes the model eager to find adjacent improvements
>"Make the smallest change that fully solves the task. Do not add abstractions, fallbacks, defensive guards, refactors, or features unless they are strictly required.”
- The same one-line tweak previously improved prompts for Claude, Claude Code, NotebookLM and ChatGPT
- Over-scoping complaints are common on Reddit, especially with GPT-5.6 Sol
- OpenAI'''s focus on long-running autonomous work makes the model eager to find adjacent improvements
>"Make the smallest change that fully solves the task. Do not add abstractions, fallbacks, defensive guards, refactors, or features unless they are strictly required.”
Kanwal Mehreen writes that as large language models move from chatbots to coding agents and autonomous workflows, good prompting is no longer enough and specification engineering is emerging as the key skill. It is the practice of defining goals, constraints, expected outputs, edge cases, tests, success criteria and failure modes so AI-assisted work is testable and reviewable. Prompt engineering asks how to ask, while specification engineering defines what done correctly means, a shift closer to product management, testing and research design than traditional prompting.
- A 2024 Requirement-Oriented Prompt Engineering paper found ROPE training improved requirement-writing ability by 20% versus 1% for conventional prompt engineering training.
- OpenAI Structured Outputs, Model Spec and Anthropic Constitution exemplify specification engineering at API and model-behavior levels.
- SWE-bench Verified is a human-validated subset used to evaluate real-world software issue solving with agents.
- Google's 2025 DORA report surveyed nearly 5,000 tech professionals and found AI amplifies existing organizational strengths and weaknesses.
- A 2024 Requirement-Oriented Prompt Engineering paper found ROPE training improved requirement-writing ability by 20% versus 1% for conventional prompt engineering training.
- OpenAI Structured Outputs, Model Spec and Anthropic Constitution exemplify specification engineering at API and model-behavior levels.
- SWE-bench Verified is a human-validated subset used to evaluate real-world software issue solving with agents.
- Google's 2025 DORA report surveyed nearly 5,000 tech professionals and found AI amplifies existing organizational strengths and weaknesses.
Emmimal P Alexander writes that while prompt engineering focuses on optimizing LLM inputs, managing these templates within evolving codebases often leads to production crashes when variables are renamed or removed. To solve this, she created `promptctl`, a Python tool that applies static analysis—similar to database schema migrations—to ensure prompt variable contracts match their call sites in the codebase.
- Performs PromptDiff (detects changes), Contract Validation (checks mismatches), and Impact Analysis (traces dependencies).
- Operates strictly via AST parsing, requiring zero LLM calls or API keys.
- Detects errors that unit tests often miss by mocking away the actual string formatting step.
- Performs PromptDiff (detects changes), Contract Validation (checks mismatches), and Impact Analysis (traces dependencies).
- Operates strictly via AST parsing, requiring zero LLM calls or API keys.
- Detects errors that unit tests often miss by mocking away the actual string formatting step.
Local large language models often struggle with ambiguous prompts because they lack the massive datasets and scale used by cloud-based AI to infer user intent. To improve accuracy, users can implement a custom system prompt that instructs the model to ask up to three targeted clarifying questions before performing complex tasks like coding or writing. This approach reduces errors caused by incorrect assumptions and helps refine user instructions through active dialogue.
>"""When tasked with coding, writing, editing, or summarizing, ask the user up to three targeted clarifying questions. Proceed with the task once you've received answers and understand the prompt fully. If the task is a simple factual question or conversational message, respond directly.
"""
>"""When tasked with coding, writing, editing, or summarizing, ask the user up to three targeted clarifying questions. Proceed with the task once you've received answers and understand the prompt fully. If the task is a simple factual question or conversational message, respond directly.
"""
Simon Willison discusses why requesting HTML rather than Markdown as an LLM output format can significantly enhance technical explanations. While token constraints previously favored Markdown, modern models benefit from the ability of HTML to incorporate SVG diagrams, interactive widgets, and improved navigation. The article provides prompt examples for reviewing pull requests via HTML artifacts and showcases a GPT-5.5 generated explanation of a Linux security exploit that uses CSS and JavaScript to create a rich documentation experience.
This handbook provides a comprehensive introduction to Claude Code, Anthropic's AI-powered software development agent. It details how Claude Code differs from traditional autocomplete tools, functioning as an agent that reads, reasons about, and modifies codebases with user direction. The guide covers installation, initial setup, advanced workflows, integrations, and autonomous loops. It's aimed at developers, founders, and anyone seeking to leverage AI in software creation, emphasizing building real applications, accelerating feature development, and maintaining codebases efficiently. The handbook also highlights the importance of prompt discipline, planning, and understanding the underlying model to maximize Claude Code's capabilities.
This article explains how to implement function calling with Google’s Gemma 3 27B model. It covers the concept of function calling, the step‑by‑step workflow, and provides a practical example using a Python `convert` function to turn $200,000 into EUR. The post walks through prompting Gemma, parsing its `tool_code` output, executing the function with `eval`, and returning a friendly final response. It also demonstrates how to set up the Google‑GenAI SDK, create a chat session, and extract tool calls. The discussion highlights Gemma’s multilingual, multimodal, and agentic capabilities, making it suitable for real‑world AI assistants that need to interact with external APIs and tools.
Prompt caching significantly reduces LLM costs and latency by storing and reusing responses to repeated or similar prompts. The core technique involves checking a cache before sending a prompt to the LLM, retrieving a prior result if available. Effective caching requires balancing cache size, retrieval speed (using methods like vector databases), and strategies for handling slight prompt variations.
This article discusses how to conduct long-term research effectively using AI as a partner, moving beyond single-prompt queries. It emphasizes the need for "Long-Term Triangulation" – a continuous, iterative methodology. The author outlines four key pillars: building a persistent memory for the AI, tracking shifts in the AI's understanding, actively critiquing its responses with contradictory data, and performing meta-audits to identify blind spots in the research process. The goal is to foster productive friction and avoid intellectual echo chambers, ensuring both the human and the AI think critically.
