Phase 4 of 9
Prompt Engineering
Days 31-35 (5 days)
Programming with Words
The difference between a mediocre AI app and an amazing one often comes down to prompts. A well-crafted prompt can make GPT-3.5 outperform a poorly-prompted GPT-4.
This phase teaches you the art and science of instructing AI models - from basic principles to advanced techniques like chain-of-thought reasoning and prompt injection defense.
What Problems Will You Solve?
Prompt Principles
Vague prompts get vague answers - 10x quality difference
Chain of Thought
AI gives wrong answers on complex logic without CoT
Security
"Ignore previous instructions" - users can hijack your bot
Templates
Hardcoded prompts don't scale - need dynamic generation
Memory
Context windows are limited - long conversations break
Daily Schedule
Day 31
Principles of Effective Prompting
Clarity, context, constraints, few-shot learning
Day 32
Chain of Thought & Reasoning
Step-by-step thinking, Tree of Thoughts, verification
Day 33
Prompt Injection & Security
Attack vectors, defense strategies, guardrails
Day 34
Dynamic Templates & Evaluation
Jinja2 templates, LLM-as-Judge, A/B testing
Day 35
Multi-Turn Conversations & Memory
History management, summarization, sliding window