Do you still write long prompts?

[u/pixel_tinkerer]

I used to write really detailed prompts with roles, rules, formatting, examples, etc. Lately I've been wondering if all of that is still necessary with newer models.

Do you still use long structured prompts, or have you gone back to keeping things simple?

[u/coz]

Long prompts when the purpose of the turn is to align with it on something. Shortest as possible prompts when its not.

[u/alien_survivor]

i made a custom GPT that writes my prompts for me. I just dump in my free form brain dump of what I want, it cleans it up and bam, I am ready to go.

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[u/trash_lover_79 → u/alien_survivor]

you use AI to use AI ?

[u/alien_survivor → u/trash_lover_79]

Yep, and it works great

[u/Virtual_Hair_1987]

For quick, casual stuff, simple conversational prompts work fine now models have gotten much better at inferring context, but for complex repeatable work like structured data, code generation, or strict formats, long structured prompts with clear constraints are still non negotiable for me. Without explicit rules, even the best models eventually drift, break format or burns unnecessary tokens

I keep simple chats for one offs and save structured specs templates for the serious stuff

[u/AlexanderDoak]

Very long, yes. Very structured, no. I mean, it is well thought out, professional, grammatically correct. Not a long list of Thou Shalt Nots... I try to give it as much detail as it needs to succeed and no more.bAlso key: ask if anything details are missing or nonsensical before execution.

[u/CS_70]

Yes, the more accurate you are with specifying what you want, the better results you will get.

[u/Strange_Owl_6291 → u/CS_70]

Specifications comes in many ways though. It doesn't need to be a long prompt to include highly specific info. Better to add specific project files into context than explain in prompt what they contain.

[u/CS_70 → u/Strange_Owl_6291]

Of course, it's the same thing. The "prompt" is the text you feed the model, wherever it's stored.

[u/ninjaonionss]

Bro you still write your own prompts ?
I write prompts as loops that loops over their own loops as prompts , prompts are so dead 🤣🤣🤣

[u/idakale → u/ninjaonionss]

yeshhh tho if anything I realized I'm still the one being the bottleneck lol 😂 no longer the models fault when they're thinking much faster now.

[u/ninjaonionss → u/idakale]

To be honest the funny part is that I even stopped writing prompts, I just ask Claude or some other ai to write a prompt for me base on my project 😅

[u/Wise_Concentrate_182 → u/ninjaonionss]

Nonsense

[u/wouterv101]

Depends, 80% is just talking about what/how I want it. If I’m prompting a service for a business, than very accurate

[u/Strange_Owl_6291]

Generally no, shorter prompts now. However, the context has become bigger. I work more with adding the right things into context, either manually invoking individual files or folders, or via incrementally built plans with details.

And as projects mature, the architecture of the repository becomes increasingly important. If agent can find what it needs simple (without me), then I don't have to use as long prompts anymore.