Mastering Few-Shot Prompting

Few-shot prompting is one of the most powerful techniques in a prompt engineer's toolkit. By providing a few examples of input-output pairs, you can significantly improve model performance on complex or niche tasks.

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Why Few-Shot?

While "Zero-Shot" (just asking) works for general tasks, Few-Shot is essential when:

• You need a specific output format* (like a custom JSON schema).
• You want to mirror a specific **tone or style**.
• The task requires *complex logic that the model might struggle with initially.

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  The Perfect Few-Shot Structure

A robust few-shot prompt usually follows this pattern: 1. The System Message: Define the role. 2. The Examples: 3-5 high-quality examples of inputs and desired outputs. 3. The Target: The actual query you want the model to process.

Tip: Make sure your examples are diverse. If all your examples are short, the model will produce short outputs even if the target query requires a long explanation.