Introduction

Welcome to The Interactive Book of Prompting, your guide to communicating effectively with AI.

What is Prompt Engineering?

Prompt engineering is the skill of writing good instructions for AI. When you type something to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or other AI tools, that's called a "prompt." The better your prompt, the better the answer you get.

Think of it like this: AI is a powerful helper that takes your words very literally. It will do exactly what you ask. The trick is learning how to ask for exactly what you want.

Write about dogs

Write a 200-word informative paragraph about the history of dog domestication, suitable for a middle school science textbook, with an engaging opening hook.

The difference in output quality between these two prompts can be dramatic.

Write a 200-word informative paragraph about the history of dog domestication, suitable for a middle school science textbook, with an engaging opening hook.

How Prompt Engineering Has Evolved

In just three years since ChatGPT launched, prompt engineering has evolved dramatically alongside the technology itself. What started as simply "writing better questions" has grown into something much broader.

Today, we understand that your prompt is just one part of a larger context. Modern AI systems work with multiple types of data simultaneously:

• System prompts that define the AI's behavior
• Conversation history from previous messages
• Retrieved documents pulled from databases (RAG)
• Tool definitions that let AI take actions
• User preferences and settings
• Your actual prompt - the question you're asking right now

This shift from "prompt engineering" to "context engineering" reflects how we now think about AI interactions. Your prompt matters, but so does everything else the AI sees. The best results come from carefully managing all these pieces together.

We'll explore these concepts in depth throughout this book, especially in the Context Engineering chapter.

Why Does Prompt Engineering Matter?

1. Getting Better Answers

AI tools are incredibly capable, but they need clear instructions to unlock their full potential. The same AI that gives a mediocre response to a vague question can produce brilliant work when prompted correctly.

Help me with my resume

Review my resume for a senior software engineer position. Focus on: 1) Impact metrics, 2) Technical skills section, 3) ATS optimization. Suggest specific improvements with examples.

2. Saving Time and Money

A well-crafted prompt gets results in one try instead of multiple back-and-forth exchanges. This matters even more when you're paying per token or working with rate limits. A 5-minute investment in writing a good prompt can save hours of iteration.

3. Getting Consistent, Reproducible Results

Good prompts produce predictable outputs. This is critical for:

• Business workflows where you need the same quality every time
• Automation where prompts run without human review
• Teams where multiple people need similar results

4. Unlocking Advanced Capabilities

Many powerful AI features only work when you know how to ask:

• Chain-of-thought reasoning for complex problems
• Structured output for data extraction
• Role-playing for specialized expertise
• Few-shot learning for custom tasks

Without prompt engineering knowledge, you're only using a fraction of what AI can do.

5. Staying Safe and Avoiding Pitfalls

Good prompting helps you:

• Avoid hallucinations by asking for sources and verification
• Get balanced perspectives instead of one-sided answers
• Prevent the AI from making assumptions you didn't intend
• Keep sensitive information out of your prompts

6. Future-Proofing Your Skills

As AI becomes more integrated into work and life, prompt engineering becomes a fundamental literacy. The principles you learn here apply across all AI tools—ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, image generators, and future models we haven't seen yet.

Who Is This Book For?

This book is for everyone:

• Beginners who want to learn how to use AI tools better
• Students working on homework, research, or creative projects
• Writers and creators using AI for their work
• Developers building apps with AI
• Business people who want to use AI at work
• Anyone curious about getting more out of AI assistants

How This Book Is Organized

Part 1: Foundations

How AI works, what makes a good prompt

Part 2: Techniques

Roles, structured output, chain of thought

Part 3: Advanced

System prompts, chaining, multimodal

Part 4: Best Practices

Common mistakes and optimization tips

Part 5: Use Cases

Writing, coding, education, business

Part 6: prompts.chat

Using and contributing to the platform

Part 7: Developer Tools

Prompt Builder, MCP, API reference

Plus an Appendix with templates, troubleshooting help, glossary, and extra resources.

A Note on AI Models

This book mostly uses examples from ChatGPT (since it's the most popular), but the ideas work with any AI tool like Claude, Gemini, or others. We'll mention when something only works with specific AI models.

AI is changing fast. What works today might be replaced by something better tomorrow. That's why this book focuses on core ideas that will stay useful no matter which AI you use.

Let's Begin

Writing good prompts is a skill that gets better with practice. As you read this book:

1. Try things - Test the examples, change them, see what happens
2. Keep trying - Don't expect perfect results on your first attempt
3. Take notes - Write down what works and what doesn't
4. Share - Add your discoveries to prompts.chat

Ready to transform how you work with AI? Turn the page and let's get started.

This book is part of the prompts.chat project and is licensed under CC0 1.0 Universal (Public Domain).