SkillsAgenticRAG

Prompt Engineering Guide

by DAIR.AI

All LevelsGuideFree

The comprehensive, community-standard reference for prompt engineering.

Start LearningReviewed July 4, 2026

Overview

The Prompt Engineering Guide, maintained by DAIR.AI at promptingguide.ai, is a comprehensive open resource describing prompt engineering as the discipline of developing and optimizing prompts to efficiently use language models across applications and research. It spans core prompting methods—zero-shot and few-shot, chain-of-thought reasoning, and retrieval-augmented generation—and extends to AI agents, context engineering, and function calling, as well as applications like fine-tuning, synthetic data generation, and code generation. It includes a prompt repository with examples for classification, math, reasoning, and adversarial prompting, plus model-specific guides (Claude, GPT-4, Gemini) and research notes on agent behavior, hallucination reduction, and tokenization. It is available in multiple languages and has been used by millions of learners.

At a Glance

Topic
Skills
Level
All Levels
Format
Guide
Cost
Free
Provider
DAIR.AI
Hands-on
No
Certificate
None

What You’ll Learn

  • Core prompting techniques: zero-shot, few-shot, and chain-of-thought
  • How prompting connects to agents, RAG, and context engineering
  • Function-calling and structured-prompting patterns
  • Adversarial prompting and reliability/hallucination considerations
  • Model-specific prompting differences across major LLMs

Highlights

  • Provider-neutral, community-standard reference
  • Includes a reusable prompt repository with worked examples
  • Continuously updated and available in many languages

Who It’s For

Best For

  • Engineers who want one thorough prompt-engineering reference
  • Newcomers building a systematic mental model of prompting

Prerequisites

  • Basic understanding of what an LLM is
  • No coding required to start

FAQ

What is Prompt Engineering Guide?

DAIR.AI's open Prompt Engineering Guide, a widely used reference covering prompting techniques, agents, RAG, context engineering, and function calling. For engineers and researchers who want a thorough, provider-neutral map of the field.

Is Prompt Engineering Guide free?

Prompt Engineering Guide is free to access.

What level is Prompt Engineering Guide for?

Prompt Engineering Guide is aimed at a all levels audience. Recommended background: Basic understanding of what an LLM is, No coding required to start.

What will I learn from Prompt Engineering Guide?

You'll learn: Core prompting techniques: zero-shot, few-shot, and chain-of-thought; How prompting connects to agents, RAG, and context engineering; Function-calling and structured-prompting patterns; Adversarial prompting and reliability/hallucination considerations; Model-specific prompting differences across major LLMs.

Topics

prompt engineeringfew-shotchain-of-thoughtragagentsdair.ai