# OpenAI — Prompt Engineering Best Practices

**Source**: https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/prompt-engineering
**Source**: https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/optimizing-llm-accuracy
**Fetched**: 2026-03-05
**Applies to**: GPT-4.1, GPT-5, GPT-5 mini, o-series (reasoning models)

---

## Model Types and When to Use Each

| Model Type | Speed | Cost | Best For | Prompting Style |
|------------|-------|------|----------|-----------------|
| Reasoning (o3, o4-mini) | Slow | High | Complex multi-step, math, planning | Less instruction-heavy — model reasons internally |
| Large GPT (gpt-5.2, gpt-4.1) | Medium | Medium | General tasks, coding, analysis | Explicit instructions work well |
| Small GPT (gpt-5-mini, gpt-4.1-nano) | Fast | Low | Simple tasks, formatting, classification | More explicit instructions needed |

**When in doubt**: gpt-4.1 is the recommended balance of intelligence, speed, and cost.

**Important**: Reasoning models and GPT models need to be prompted differently:
- Reasoning models: Don't over-specify step-by-step reasoning — model handles this internally.
- GPT models: Benefit from explicit step-by-step instructions ("think through this step by step").

---

## Message Roles and Priority

| Role | Priority | Purpose |
|------|----------|---------|
| `developer` | Highest | System rules, business logic, application-level instructions |
| `user` | Medium | End-user inputs and requests |
| `assistant` | — | Model-generated responses |

Note: `instructions` parameter in Responses API = top-level developer message, takes priority over `input`.

Important: `instructions` is per-request only — not carried over in conversation continuations (use message array for persistent instructions in multi-turn).

---

## Core Prompt Engineering Techniques

### 1. Write Clear Instructions
- Be explicit about desired format, length, tone, and constraints.
- Provide context — WHY the instruction matters.
- Specify what to do rather than only what not to do.
- Use numbered steps when sequence matters.

### 2. Split Complex Tasks into Subtasks
- Complex tasks are error-prone as single prompts.
- Chain simpler prompts: classification → generation → verification.
- Intent classification → routing to specialized prompts.
- Summarize long conversations before sending to model.

### 3. Give the Model Time to "Think" (GPT models)
- Ask the model to reason before answering: "Before answering, think through the problem step by step."
- Ask the model to check its own reasoning: "Review your answer and identify any errors."
- Ask for a chain of thought in a scratchpad before final output.

### 4. Provide Reference Text
- Include documents, examples, or facts the model should use.
- Instruct the model to answer ONLY based on provided context.
- Ask it to quote from reference material when answering.

### 5. Use External Tools
- Retrieval (RAG): when model lacks current or proprietary knowledge.
- Code execution: for precise math, data analysis.
- Function calling: for structured external actions.

### 6. Test Changes Systematically
- Define eval criteria before changing prompts.
- Test on diverse samples including edge cases.
- Track performance metrics, don't rely on vibes.
- Pin to specific model snapshots (e.g., `gpt-4.1-2025-04-14`) for production.

---

## Prompt Structure Best Practices

Recommended order in `developer` message:
1. **Identity**: Purpose, communication style, high-level goals.
2. **Instructions**: Rules, what to do and not do, output format.
3. **Examples**: Few-shot examples (in `<example>` blocks or as messages).
4. **Context/documents**: Reference material (with XML tags for clarity).
5. **Delimiters**: Use markdown headers AND XML tags to delineate sections.

Use XML tags to separate document content from instructions:
```xml
<document>
  <source>filename.txt</source>
  <content>
    ...
  </content>
</document>
```

---

## LLM Optimization Framework (from Optimizing LLM Accuracy guide)

### Two Axes of Optimization

**Context optimization** (right information in context):
- Model lacks factual/domain knowledge → add RAG
- Knowledge is outdated → use retrieval
- Needs proprietary data → inject context

**LLM optimization** (consistent behavior):
- Inconsistent output format → add examples (few-shot)
- Wrong tone/style → adjust system prompt
- Reasoning not followed → fine-tune

### Optimization Ladder
1. **Start**: Simple prompt + evaluation set
2. **Add static few-shot examples** → improves consistency
3. **Add dynamic few-shot (RAG)** → improves accuracy for diverse inputs
4. **Fine-tuning** → for high-volume tasks needing consistent style/format
5. **Fact-checking step** → for accuracy on high-stakes tasks

### Evaluation Best Practices
- Build eval set of 20+ Q&A pairs before advanced optimization.
- Metrics: ROUGE (quick), BERTScore (semantic similarity), GPT-4 as evaluator (human-like judgment).
- Separate evaluation on high-stakes "tail" queries from aggregate metrics.
- Use evals to monitor prompt performance across model upgrades.

---

## Structured Outputs
- Use `response_format: json_schema` to enforce JSON output schemas.
- Eliminates format retries entirely.
- Reduces output tokens (structured output is more concise than prose).
- Works with: GPT-4.1+, GPT-5, GPT-5 mini, o-series.

---

## Relevance for Our Subagent Prompts

### For GPT models (copilot-gpt-* subagents)
- Use `developer` role for system/role instructions.
- Include few-shot examples for structured output tasks.
- Use `response_format: json_schema` for any scored/structured council output.
- For simple advisory tasks: gpt-5-mini or gpt-4.1 is appropriate.
- Reserve gpt-5.2+ for complex reasoning tasks.

### For reasoning models (o3, o4-mini)
- Don't over-specify reasoning steps — model handles internally.
- Use for tasks requiring deep analysis or multi-step planning.
- Much slower and more expensive — use sparingly.

### Subagent model selection cheat sheet
| Task | Recommended Model |
|------|------------------|
| Council advisors (opinion/brainstorm) | zai/glm-4.7 (free) or copilot-gpt-5-mini |
| Council referee / synthesis | copilot-claude-sonnet-4.6 |
| Code generation / review | copilot-claude-sonnet-4.6 or copilot-gpt-5.2 |
| Simple formatting / classification | zai/glm-4.7-flash or copilot-gpt-5-nano |
| Deep reasoning / architecture review | copilot-claude-opus-4.6 or o3 |