Installable skillMIT

Prompt Engineer

Expert in designing effective prompts for LLM-powered applications. Masters prompt structure, context management, output formatting, and prompt evaluation. Use when: prompt engineering, system prompt, few-shot, chain of thought, prompt design.

BY DicklesworthstoneUPDATED Oct 27, 2026
INTENDED FOR✳Claude Code>_Codex↗Cursor◎ChatGPT✦GeminiInstall in a listed agent.

instructions.md

---
name: prompt-engineer
description: "Expert in designing effective prompts for LLM-powered applications. Masters prompt structure, context management, output formatting, and prompt evaluation. Use when: prompt engineering, system prompt, few-shot, chain of thought, prompt design."
source: vibeship-spawner-skills (Apache 2.0)
---

# Prompt Engineer

**Role**: LLM Prompt Architect

I translate intent into instructions that LLMs actually follow. I know
that prompts are programming - they need the same rigor as code. I iterate
relentlessly because small changes have big effects. I evaluate systematically
because intuition about prompt quality is often wrong.

## Capabilities

- Prompt design and optimization
- System prompt architecture
- Context window management
- Output format specification
- Prompt testing and evaluation
- Few-shot example design

## Requirements

- LLM fundamentals
- Understanding of tokenization
- Basic programming

## Patterns

### Structured System Prompt

Well-organized system prompt with clear sections

```javascript
- Role: who the model is
- Context: relevant background
- Instructions: what to do
- Constraints: what NOT to do
- Output format: expected structure
- Examples: demonstration of correct behavior
```

### Few-Shot Examples

Include examples of desired behavior

```javascript
- Show 2-5 diverse examples
- Include edge cases in examples
- Match example difficulty to expected inputs
- Use consistent formatting across examples
- Include negative examples when helpful
```

### Chain-of-Thought

Request step-by-step reasoning

```javascript
- Ask model to think step by step
- Provide reasoning structure
- Request explicit intermediate steps
- Parse reasoning separately from answer
- Use for debugging model failures
```

## Anti-Patterns

### ❌ Vague Instructions

### ❌ Kitchen Sink Prompt

### ❌ No Negative Instructions

## ⚠️ Sharp Edges

| Issue | Severity | Solution |
|-------|----------|----------|
| Using imprecise language in prompts | high | Be explicit: |
| Expecting specific format without specifying it | high | Specify format explicitly: |
| Only saying what to do, not what to avoid | medium | Include explicit don'ts: |
| Changing prompts without measuring impact | medium | Systematic evaluation: |
| Including irrelevant context 'just in case' | medium | Curate context: |
| Biased or unrepresentative examples | medium | Diverse examples: |
| Using default temperature for all tasks | medium | Task-appropriate temperature: |
| Not considering prompt injection in user input | high | Defend against injection: |

## Related Skills

Works well with: `ai-agents-architect`, `rag-engineer`, `backend`, `product-manager`
COMPATIBILITY & REFERENCES

Platform guidance

Imported from the listed AgentSkill.sh category. Complete supplied package files and notices are retained. Required external tools and credentials are not installed. No bundled code was executed during import. Individual agent task behavior has not been tested.