Prompt Engineering - OpenAI API

4/12/24, 8:36 PM Prompt engineering - OpenAI API
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Prompt engineering
This guide shares strategies and tactics for getting better results from large language models
(sometimes referred to as GPT models) like GPT-4. The methods described here can sometimes
be deployed in combination for greater effect. We encourage experimentation to find the
methods that work best for you.
Some of the examples demonstrated here currently work only with our most capable model,
gpt-4 . In general, if you find that a model fails at a task and a more capable model is available,
it's often worth trying again with the more capable model.
You can also explore example prompts which showcase what our models are capable of:
Prompt examples
Explore prompt examples to learn what GPT models can do
Six strategies for getting better results
Write clear instructions
These models can’t read your mind. If outputs are too long, ask for brief replies. If outputs are
too simple, ask for expert-level writing. If you dislike the format, demonstrate the format you’d
like to see. The less the model has to guess at what you want, the more likely you’ll get it.
Tactics:
Include details in your query to get more relevant answers

Ask the model to adopt a persona
Use delimiters to clearly indicate distinct parts of the input
https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/prompt-engineering/strategy-test-changes-systematically 1/21
Specify the steps required to complete a task 

Provide examples
Specify the desired length of the output
Provide reference text

Language models can confidently invent fake answers, especially when asked about esoteric
topics or for citations and URLs. In the same way that a sheet of notes can help a student do
better on a test, providing reference text to these models can help in answering with fewer
fabrications.
Tactics:
Instruct the model to answer using a reference text

Instruct the model to answer with citations from a reference text
Split complex tasks into simpler subtasks
Just as it is good practice in software engineering to decompose a complex system into a set of
modular components, the same is true of tasks submitted to a language model. Complex tasks
tend to have higher error rates than simpler tasks. Furthermore, complex tasks can often be re-
defined as a workflow of simpler tasks in which the outputs of earlier tasks are used to construct
the inputs to later tasks.
Tactics:
Use intent classification to identify the most relevant instructions for a user query
For dialogue applications that require very long conversations, summarize or filter previous
dialogue
Summarize long documents piecewise and construct a full summary recursively
Give the model time to "think"
If asked to multiply 17 by 28, you might not know it instantly, but can still work it out with time.
Similarly, models make more reasoning errors when trying to answer right away, rather than
taking time to work out an answer. Asking for a "chain of thought" before an answer can help the
model reason its way toward correct answers more reliably.
Tactics:
Instruct the model to work out its own solution before rushing to a conclusion
Use inner monologue or a sequence of queries to hide the model's reasoning process 

Ask the model if it missed anything on previous passes
Use external tools

Compensate for the weaknesses of the model by feeding it the outputs of other tools. For
example, a text retrieval system (sometimes called RAG or retrieval augmented generation) can
tell the model about relevant documents. A code execution engine like OpenAI's Code
Interpreter can help the model do math and run code. If a task can be done more reliably or
efficiently by a tool rather than by a language model, offload it to get the best of both.
Tactics:
Use embeddings-based search to implement efficient knowledge retrieval

Use code execution to perform more accurate calculations or call external APIs
Give the model access to specific functions
Test changes systematically

Improving performance is easier if you can measure it. In some cases a modification to a prompt
will achieve better performance on a few isolated examples but lead to worse overall
performance on a more representative set of examples. Therefore to be sure that a change is
net positive to performance it may be necessary to define a comprehensive test suite (also
known an as an "eval").
Tactic:
Evaluate model outputs with reference to gold-standard answers
Tactics
Each of the strategies listed above can be instantiated with specific tactics. These tactics are
meant to provide ideas for things to try. They are by no means fully comprehensive, and you
should feel free to try creative ideas not represented here.
Strategy: Write clear instructions
Tactic: Include details in your query to get more relevant answers
In order to get a highly relevant response, make sure that requests provide any important details 
Overview
or context. Documentation
Otherwise API
you are leaving it reference
up to the model to guess what you mean.Log in Sign up
Worse Better
How do I add numbers How do I add up a row of dollar amounts in Excel? I want to do this
in Excel? automatically for a whole sheet of rows with all the totals ending up on
the right in a column called "Total".
Who’s president? Who was the president of Mexico in 2021, and how frequently are
elections held?
Write code to Write a TypeScript function to efficiently calculate the Fibonacci

calculate the sequence. Comment the code liberally to explain what each piece does
Fibonacci sequence. and why it's written that way.
Summarize the Summarize the meeting notes in a single paragraph. Then write a
meeting notes. markdown list of the speakers and each of their key points. Finally, list
the next steps or action items suggested by the speakers, if any.
Tactic: Ask the model to adopt a persona
The system message can be used to specify the persona used by the model in its replies.
SYSTEM When I ask for help to write something, you will reply with a document that
contains at least one joke or playful comment in every paragraph.
USER Write a thank you note to my steel bolt vendor for getting the delivery in on
time and in short notice. This made it possible for us to deliver an important
order.
Open in Playground
Tactic: Use delimiters to clearly indicate distinct parts of the input
Delimiters like triple quotation marks, XML tags, section titles, etc. can help demarcate sections
of text to be treated differently.
USER Summarize the text delimited by triple quotes with a haiku.
"""insert text here""" 
Open in Playground
SYSTEM You will be provided with a pair of articles (delimited with XML tags) about
the same topic. First summarize the arguments of each article. Then indicate
which of them makes a better argument and explain why.
USER <article> insert first article here </article>
<article> insert second article here </article>
Open in Playground
SYSTEM You will be provided with a thesis abstract and a suggested title for it. The
thesis title should give the reader a good idea of the topic of the thesis but
should also be eye-catching. If the title does not meet these criteria, suggest
5 alternatives.
USER Abstract: insert abstract here
Title: insert title here
Open in Playground
For straightforward tasks such as these, using delimiters might not make a difference in the
output quality. However, the more complex a task is the more important it is to disambiguate
task details. Don’t make the model work to understand exactly what you are asking of them.
Tactic: Specify the steps required to complete a task
Some tasks are best specified as a sequence of steps. Writing the steps out explicitly can make
it easier for the model to follow them.
SYSTEM Use the following step-by-step instructions to respond to user inputs.
Step 1 - The user will provide you with text in triple quotes. Summarize this
text in one sentence with a prefix that says "Summary: ".
Overview Step
Documentation APIsummary
2 - Translate the reference from Step 1 into Spanish, with a Log in thatSign up
prefix
says "Translation: ".
USER """insert text here"""
Open in Playground
Tactic: Provide examples
Providing general instructions that apply to all examples is generally more efficient than
demonstrating all permutations of a task by example, but in some cases providing examples
may be easier. For example, if you intend for the model to copy a particular style of responding
to user queries which is difficult to describe explicitly. This is known as "few-shot" prompting.
SYSTEM Answer in a consistent style.
USER Teach me about patience.
ASSISTANT The river that carves the deepest valley flows from a modest spring; the
grandest symphony originates from a single note; the most intricate tapestry
begins with a solitary thread.
USER Teach me about the ocean.
Open in Playground
Tactic: Specify the desired length of the output
You can ask the model to produce outputs that are of a given target length. The targeted output
length can be specified in terms of the count of words, sentences, paragraphs, bullet points, etc.
Note however that instructing the model to generate a specific number of words does not work
with high precision. The model can more reliably generate outputs with a specific number of
paragraphs or bullet points.
USER Summarize the text delimited by triple quotes in about 50 words.
"""insert text here"""

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USER Summarize the text delimited by triple quotes in 2 paragraphs.
Open in Playground
USER Summarize the text delimited by triple quotes in 3 bullet points.
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Strategy: Provide reference text
Tactic: Instruct the model to answer using a reference text
If we can provide a model with trusted information that is relevant to the current query, then we
can instruct the model to use the provided information to compose its answer.
SYSTEM Use the provided articles delimited by triple quotes to answer questions. If
the answer cannot be found in the articles, write "I could not find an answer."
USER <insert articles, each delimited by triple quotes>
Question: <insert question here>
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Given that all models have limited context windows, we need some way to dynamically lookup
information that is relevant to the question being asked. Embeddings can be used to implement
efficient knowledge retrieval. See the tactic "Use embeddings-based search to implement
efficient knowledge retrieval" for more details on how to implement this.
Tactic: Instruct the model to answer with citations from a reference text
If the input has been supplemented with relevant knowledge, it's straightforward to request that 
the modelOverview Documentation

add citations APIby
to its answers reference Log in
referencing passages from provided documents. Sign
Noteup
that citations in the output can then be verified programmatically by string matching within the
provided documents.
SYSTEM You will be provided with a document delimited by triple quotes and a
question. Your task is to answer the question using only the provided
document and to cite the passage(s) of the document used to answer the
question. If the document does not contain the information needed to answer
this question then simply write: "Insufficient information." If an answer to the
question is provided, it must be annotated with a citation. Use the following
format for to cite relevant passages ({"citation": …}).
USER """<insert document here>"""
Question: <insert question here>
Open in Playground
Strategy: Split complex tasks into simpler subtasks
Tactic: Use intent classification to identify the most relevant instructions for a user
query
For tasks in which lots of independent sets of instructions are needed to handle different cases,
it can be beneficial to first classify the type of query and to use that classification to determine
which instructions are needed. This can be achieved by defining fixed categories and
hardcoding instructions that are relevant for handling tasks in a given category. This process
can also be applied recursively to decompose a task into a sequence of stages. The advantage
of this approach is that each query will contain only those instructions that are required to
perform the next stage of a task which can result in lower error rates compared to using a single
query to perform the whole task. This can also result in lower costs since larger prompts cost
more to run (see pricing information).
Suppose for example that for a customer service application, queries could be usefully
classified as follows:
SYSTEM You will be provided with customer service queries. Classify each query into a
primary category and a secondary category. Provide your output in json
format with the keys: primary and secondary. 
Primary categories: Billing, Technical Support, Account Management, or

General Inquiry.
Billing secondary categories:

- Unsubscribe or upgrade
- Add a payment method
- Explanation for charge
- Dispute a charge
Technical Support secondary categories:

- Troubleshooting
- Device compatibility
- Software updates
Account Management secondary categories:

- Password reset
- Update personal information
- Close account
- Account security
General Inquiry secondary categories:

- Product information
- Pricing
- Feedback
- Speak to a human
USER I need to get my internet working again.
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Based on the classification of the customer query, a set of more specific instructions can be
provided to a model for it to handle next steps. For example, suppose the customer requires
help with "troubleshooting".
SYSTEM You will be provided with customer service inquiries that require
troubleshooting in a technical support context. Help the user by:
- Ask them to check that all cables to/from the router are connected. Note
that it is common for cables to come loose over time. 
Overview - IfDocumentation API reference

all cables are connected Log router
and the issue persists, ask them which in Sign up
model they are using

- Now you will advise them how to restart their device:
-- If the model number is MTD-327J, advise them to push the red button and
hold it for 5 seconds, then wait 5 minutes before testing the connection.
-- If the model number is MTD-327S, advise them to unplug and replug it,
then wait 5 minutes before testing the connection.
- If the customer's issue persists after restarting the device and waiting 5
minutes, connect them to IT support by outputting {"IT support requested"}.
- If the user starts asking questions that are unrelated to this topic then
confirm if they would like to end the current chat about troubleshooting and
classify their request according to the following scheme:
<insert primary/secondary classification scheme from above here>
USER I need to get my internet working again.
Open in Playground
Notice that the model has been instructed to emit special strings to indicate when the state of
the conversation changes. This enables us to turn our system into a state machine where the
state determines which instructions are injected. By keeping track of state, what instructions are
relevant at that state, and also optionally what state transitions are allowed from that state, we
can put guardrails around the user experience that would be hard to achieve with a less
structured approach.
Tactic: For dialogue applications that require very long conversations, summarize
or filter previous dialogue
Since models have a fixed context length, dialogue between a user and an assistant in which the
entire conversation is included in the context window cannot continue indefinitely.
There are various workarounds to this problem, one of which is to summarize previous turns in
the conversation. Once the size of the input reaches a predetermined threshold length, this
could trigger a query that summarizes part of the conversation and the summary of the prior
conversation could be included as part of the system message. Alternatively, prior conversation
could be summarized asynchronously in the background throughout the entire conversation.
An alternative solution is to dynamically select previous parts of the conversation that are most
relevant to the current query. See the tactic "Use embeddings-based search to implement
efficient knowledge retrieval". 
Tactic: Summarize long documents piecewise and construct a full summary

recursively
Since models have a fixed context length, they cannot be used to summarize a text longer than
the context length minus the length of the generated summary in a single query.
To summarize a very long document such as a book we can use a sequence of queries to
summarize each section of the document. Section summaries can be concatenated and
summarized producing summaries of summaries. This process can proceed recursively until an
entire document is summarized. If it’s necessary to use information about earlier sections in
order to make sense of later sections, then a further trick that can be useful is to include a
running summary of the text that precedes any given point in the book while summarizing
content at that point. The effectiveness of this procedure for summarizing books has been
studied in previous research by OpenAI using variants of GPT-3.
Strategy: Give models time to "think"
Tactic: Instruct the model to work out its own solution before rushing to a
conclusion
Sometimes we get better results when we explicitly instruct the model to reason from first
principles before coming to a conclusion. Suppose for example we want a model to evaluate a
student’s solution to a math problem. The most obvious way to approach this is to simply ask
the model if the student's solution is correct or not.
SYSTEM Determine if the student's solution is correct or not.
USER Problem Statement: I'm building a solar power installation and I need help
working out the financials.
- Land costs $100 / square foot
- I can buy solar panels for $250 / square foot
- I negotiated a contract for maintenance that will cost me a flat $100k per
year, and an additional $10 / square foot
What is the total cost for the first year of operations as a function of the
number of square feet.
Student's Solution: Let x be the size of the installation in square feet.

1. Land cost: 100x
2. Solar panel cost: 250x 
Overview 3. Documentation
Maintenance cost:API reference
100,000 + 100x Log in Sign up
Total cost: 100x + 250x + 100,000 + 100x = 450x + 100,000
ASSISTANT The student's solution is correct.
Open in Playground
But the student's solution is actually not correct! We can get the model to successfully notice
this by prompting the model to generate its own solution first.
SYSTEM First work out your own solution to the problem. Then compare your solution
to the student's solution and evaluate if the student's solution is correct or
not. Don't decide if the student's solution is correct until you have done the
problem yourself.
USER Problem Statement: I'm building a solar power installation and I need help
working out the financials.
- Land costs $100 / square foot
- I can buy solar panels for $250 / square foot
- I negotiated a contract for maintenance that will cost me a flat $100k per
year, and an additional $10 / square foot
What is the total cost for the first year of operations as a function of the
number of square feet.
Student's Solution: Let x be the size of the installation in square feet.

1. Land cost: 100x
2. Solar panel cost: 250x
3. Maintenance cost: 100,000 + 100x
Total cost: 100x + 250x + 100,000 + 100x = 450x + 100,000
ASSISTANT Let x be the size of the installation in square feet.

1. Land cost: 100x
2. Solar panel cost: 250x
3. Maintenance cost: 100,000 + 10x
Total cost: 100x + 250x + 100,000 + 10x = 360x + 100,000
The student's solution is incorrect. They made an error in the maintenance

cost calculation, using 100x instead of 10x. The correct total cost for the first
year of operations is 360x + 100,000.

Open in Playground
Tactic: Use inner monologue or a sequence of queries to hide the model's reasoning
process
The previous tactic demonstrates that it is sometimes important for the model to reason in
detail about a problem before answering a specific question. For some applications, the
reasoning process that a model uses to arrive at a final answer would be inappropriate to share
with the user. For example, in tutoring applications we may want to encourage students to work
out their own answers, but a model’s reasoning process about the student’s solution could
reveal the answer to the student.
Inner monologue is a tactic that can be used to mitigate this. The idea of inner monologue is to
instruct the model to put parts of the output that are meant to be hidden from the user into a
structured format that makes parsing them easy. Then before presenting the output to the user,
the output is parsed and only part of the output is made visible.
SYSTEM Follow these steps to answer the user queries.
Step 1 - First work out your own solution to the problem. Don't rely on the
student's solution since it may be incorrect. Enclose all your work for this step
within triple quotes (""").
Step 2 - Compare your solution to the student's solution and evaluate if the
student's solution is correct or not. Enclose all your work for this step within
triple quotes (""").
Step 3 - If the student made a mistake, determine what hint you could give
the student without giving away the answer. Enclose all your work for this
step within triple quotes (""").
Step 4 - If the student made a mistake, provide the hint from the previous
step to the student (outside of triple quotes). Instead of writing "Step 4 - ..."
write "Hint:".
USER Problem Statement: <insert problem statement>
Student Solution: <insert student solution>
Open in Playground
Alternatively, this can be achieved with a sequence of queries in which all except the last have 
Overview
their output hiddenDocumentation API reference
from the end user. Log in Sign up
First, we can ask the model to solve the problem on its own. Since this initial query doesn't
require the student’s solution, it can be omitted. This provides the additional advantage that
there is no chance that the model’s solution will be biased by the student’s attempted solution.
USER <insert problem statement>
Open in Playground
Next, we can have the model use all available information to assess the correctness of the
student’s solution.
SYSTEM Compare your solution to the student's solution and evaluate if the student's
solution is correct or not.
USER Problem statement: """<insert problem statement>"""
Your solution: """<insert model generated solution>"""
Student’s solution: """<insert student's solution>"""
Open in Playground
Finally, we can let the model use its own analysis to construct a reply in the persona of a helpful
tutor.
SYSTEM You are a math tutor. If the student made an error, offer a hint to the student in
a way that does not reveal the answer. If the student did not make an error,
simply offer them an encouraging comment.

USER Problem statement: """<insert problem statement>"""
Your solution: """<insert model generated solution>"""
Student’s solution: """<insert student's solution>"""
Analysis: """<insert model generated analysis from previous step>"""
Open in Playground
Tactic: Ask the model if it missed anything on previous passes
Suppose that we are using a model to list excerpts from a source which are relevant to a
particular question. After listing each excerpt the model needs to determine if it should start
writing another or if it should stop. If the source document is large, it is common for a model to
stop too early and fail to list all relevant excerpts. In that case, better performance can often be
obtained by prompting the model with followup queries to find any excerpts it missed on
previous passes.
SYSTEM You will be provided with a document delimited by triple quotes. Your task is
to select excerpts which pertain to the following question: "What significant
paradigm shifts have occurred in the history of artificial intelligence."
Ensure that excerpts contain all relevant context needed to interpret them -
in other words don't extract small snippets that are missing important
context. Provide output in JSON format as follows:
[{"excerpt": "..."},
...
{"excerpt": "..."}]
USER """<insert document here>"""
ASSISTANT [{"excerpt": "the model writes an excerpt here"},

...
{"excerpt": "the model writes another excerpt here"}]

USER Are there more relevant excerpts? Take care not to repeat excerpts. Also
ensure that excerpts contain all relevant context needed to interpret them - in
other words don't extract small snippets that are missing important context.
Open in Playground
Strategy: Use external tools
Tactic: Use embeddings-based search to implement efficient knowledge retrieval
A model can leverage external sources of information if provided as part of its input. This can
help the model to generate more informed and up-to-date responses. For example, if a user
asks a question about a specific movie, it may be useful to add high quality information about
the movie (e.g. actors, director, etc…) to the model’s input. Embeddings can be used to
implement efficient knowledge retrieval, so that relevant information can be added to the model
input dynamically at run-time.
A text embedding is a vector that can measure the relatedness between text strings. Similar or
relevant strings will be closer together than unrelated strings. This fact, along with the existence
of fast vector search algorithms means that embeddings can be used to implement efficient
knowledge retrieval. In particular, a text corpus can be split up into chunks, and each chunk can
be embedded and stored. Then a given query can be embedded and vector search can be
performed to find the embedded chunks of text from the corpus that are most related to the
query (i.e. closest together in the embedding space).
Example implementations can be found in the OpenAI Cookbook. See the tactic “Instruct the
model to use retrieved knowledge to answer queries” for an example of how to use knowledge
retrieval to minimize the likelihood that a model will make up incorrect facts.
Tactic: Use code execution to perform more accurate calculations or call external
APIs
Language models cannot be relied upon to perform arithmetic or long calculations accurately
on their own. In cases where this is needed, a model can be instructed to write and run code
instead of making its own calculations. In particular, a model can be instructed to put code that
is meant to be run into a designated format such as triple backtick. After an output is produced,
the code can be extracted and run. Finally, if necessary, the output from the code execution
engine (i.e. Python interpreter) can be provided as an input to the model for the next query.
SYSTEM You can write and execute Python code by enclosing it in triple backticks, e.g. 
Overview ```code
Documentation API reference
goes here```. Use this to perform calculations. Log in Sign up
USER Find all real-valued roots of the following polynomial: 3*x**5 - 5*x**4 - 3*x**3
- 7*x - 10.
Open in Playground
Another good use case for code execution is calling external APIs. If a model is instructed in the
proper use of an API, it can write code that makes use of it. A model can be instructed in how to
use an API by providing it with documentation and/or code samples showing how to use the API.
SYSTEM You can write and execute Python code by enclosing it in triple backticks.
Also note that you have access to the following module to help users send
messages to their friends:
```python
import message
message.write(to="John", message="Hey, want to meetup after work?")```
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WARNING: Executing code produced by a model is not inherently safe and precautions should
be taken in any application that seeks to do this. In particular, a sandboxed code execution
environment is needed to limit the harm that untrusted code could cause.
Tactic: Give the model access to specific functions
The Chat Completions API allows passing a list of function descriptions in requests. This
enables models to generate function arguments according to the provided schemas. Generated
function arguments are returned by the API in JSON format and can be used to execute function
calls. Output provided by function calls can then be fed back into a model in the following
request to close the loop. This is the recommended way of using OpenAI models to call external
functions. To learn more see the function calling section in our introductory text generation
guide and more function calling examples in the OpenAI Cookbook.
Strategy: Test changes systematically
Sometimes it can be hard to tell whether a change — e.g., a new instruction or a new design — 
makes Overview
your systemDocumentation
better or worse.API reference
Looking Log
at a few examples may hint at which in
is better, Sign
but up
with small sample sizes it can be hard to distinguish between a true improvement or random
luck. Maybe the change helps performance on some inputs, but hurts performance on others.
Evaluation procedures (or "evals") are useful for optimizing system designs. Good evals are:
Representative of real-world usage (or at least diverse)

Contain many test cases for greater statistical power (see table below for guidelines)
Easy to automate or repeat
DIFF ERENCE TO DET ECT SAMPLE SIZE NEED ED FOR 95% CONFID ENCE
30% ~10
10% ~100
3% ~1,000
1% ~10,000
Evaluation of outputs can be done by computers, humans, or a mix. Computers can automate
evals with objective criteria (e.g., questions with single correct answers) as well as some
subjective or fuzzy criteria, in which model outputs are evaluated by other model queries.
OpenAI Evals is an open-source software framework that provides tools for creating automated
evals.
Model-based evals can be useful when there exists a range of possible outputs that would be
considered equally high in quality (e.g. for questions with long answers). The boundary between
what can be realistically evaluated with a model-based eval and what requires a human to
evaluate is fuzzy and is constantly shifting as models become more capable. We encourage
experimentation to figure out how well model-based evals can work for your use case.
Tactic: Evaluate model outputs with reference to gold-standard answers
Suppose it is known that the correct answer to a question should make reference to a specific
set of known facts. Then we can use a model query to count how many of the required facts are
included in the answer.
For example, using the following system message:
SYSTEM You will be provided with text delimited by triple quotes that is supposed to
be the answer to a question. Check if the following pieces of information are
directly contained in the answer: 
- Neil Armstrong was the first person to walk on the moon.

- The date Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon was July 21, 1969.
For each of these points perform the following steps:
1 - Restate the point.

2 - Provide a citation from the answer which is closest to this point.
3 - Consider if someone reading the citation who doesn't know the topic
could directly infer the point. Explain why or why not before making up your
mind.
4 - Write "yes" if the answer to 3 was yes, otherwise write "no".
Finally, provide a count of how many "yes" answers there are. Provide this
count as {"count": <insert count here>}.
Here's an example input where both points are satisfied:
SYSTEM <insert system message above>
USER """Neil Armstrong is famous for being the first human to set foot on the Moon.
This historic event took place on July 21, 1969, during the Apollo 11 mission."""
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Here's an example input where only one point is satisfied:
USER """Neil Armstrong made history when he stepped off the lunar module,
becoming the first person to walk on the moon."""
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Here's an example input where none are satisfied:
Overview
SYSTEM <insert system message
Documentation above>
API reference Log in Sign up
USER """In the summer of '69, a voyage grand,

Apollo 11, bold as legend's hand.
Armstrong took a step, history unfurled,
"One small step," he said, for a new world."""
Open in Playground
There are many possible variants on this type of model-based eval. Consider the following
variation which tracks the kind of overlap between the candidate answer and the gold-standard
answer, and also tracks whether the candidate answer contradicts any part of the gold-standard
answer.
SYSTEM Use the following steps to respond to user inputs. Fully restate each step
before proceeding. i.e. "Step 1: Reason...".
Step 1: Reason step-by-step about whether the information in the submitted

answer compared to the expert answer is either: disjoint, equal, a subset, a
superset, or overlapping (i.e. some intersection but not subset/superset).
Step 2: Reason step-by-step about whether the submitted answer

contradicts any aspect of the expert answer.
Step 3: Output a JSON object structured like: {"type_of_overlap": "disjoint" or

"equal" or "subset" or "superset" or "overlapping", "contradiction": true or
false}
Here's an example input with a substandard answer which nonetheless does not contradict the
expert answer:
USER Question: """What event is Neil Armstrong most famous for and on what date
did it occur? Assume UTC time."""
Submitted Answer: """Didn't he walk on the moon or something?"""
Expert Answer: """Neil Armstrong is most famous for being the first person to 
Overview walk
Documentation API reference
on the moon. This Log in
historic event occurred on July 21, 1969.""" Sign up
Open in Playground
Here's an example input with answer that directly contradicts the expert answer:
did it occur? Assume UTC time."""
Submitted Answer: """On the 21st of July 1969, Neil Armstrong became the
second person to walk on the moon, following after Buzz Aldrin."""
Expert Answer: """Neil Armstrong is most famous for being the first person to
walk on the moon. This historic event occurred on July 21, 1969."""
Open in Playground
Here's an example input with a correct answer that also provides a bit more detail than is
necessary:
did it occur? Assume UTC time """

Prompt Engineering - OpenAI API

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Streaming is now available in the Assistants API.

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Six strategies for getting better results

Write clear instructions

Include details in your query to get more relevant answers

Specify the steps required to complete a task 

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Provide reference text

Instruct the model to answer using a reference text

Split complex tasks into simpler subtasks

Give the model time to "think"

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Use external tools

Use embeddings-based search to implement efficient knowledge retrieval

Test changes systematically

Evaluate model outputs with reference to gold-standard answers

Strategy: Write clear instructions

Tactic: Include details in your query to get more relevant answers

Write code to Write a TypeScript function to efficiently calculate the Fibonacci

Tactic: Ask the model to adopt a persona

Tactic: Use delimiters to clearly indicate distinct parts of the input

USER Summarize the text delimited by triple quotes with a haiku.

"""insert text here""" 

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USER <article> insert first article here </article>

<article> insert second article here </article>

USER Abstract: insert abstract here

Title: insert title here

Tactic: Specify the steps required to complete a task

SYSTEM Use the following step-by-step instructions to respond to user inputs.

USER """insert text here"""

Tactic: Provide examples

SYSTEM Answer in a consistent style.

USER Teach me about patience.

USER Teach me about the ocean.

Tactic: Specify the desired length of the output

USER Summarize the text delimited by triple quotes in about 50 words.

"""insert text here"""

USER Summarize the text delimited by triple quotes in 2 paragraphs.

"""insert text here"""

USER Summarize the text delimited by triple quotes in 3 bullet points.

"""insert text here"""

Strategy: Provide reference text

Tactic: Instruct the model to answer using a reference text

USER <insert articles, each delimited by triple quotes>

Question: <insert question here>

the modelOverview Documentation

USER """<insert document here>"""

Question: <insert question here>

Strategy: Split complex tasks into simpler subtasks

format with the keys: primary and secondary. 

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Primary categories: Billing, Technical Support, Account Management, or

Billing secondary categories:

Technical Support secondary categories:

Account Management secondary categories:

General Inquiry secondary categories: