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Prompt Patterns

Timeless Design Patterns for Effective Communication with Large Language Models

Bilgin Ibryam

Prompting is a design problem, not a syntax problem. Prompt Patterns introduces durable patterns for reliable work with large language models.

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About

About

About the Book

Prompt Patterns is a practical guide to reliable prompting through a pattern language. It defines prompt patterns as named, reusable design moves for shaping objective, context, constraints, and output structure.

This is not a collection of tricks. Each pattern explains when it applies, how it works, and the trade-offs involved.

For knowledge workers and builders who use LLMs via prompts in everyday work and production systems.

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Artificial Intelligence

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Author

About the Author

Bilgin Ibryam

Bilgin Ibryam is driven by a long-standing passion for writing, and sharing his experience in building enterprise software in the real world. Throughout his career, he has focused on observing recurring problems, synthesising best practices, and turning hard-earned lessons into reusable patterns that help engineers think, communicate, and build better systems. This pattern-oriented mindset is reflected in his work as the author of Camel Design Patterns and co-author of Kubernetes Patterns. His approach starts from abstraction and intent first, before specific tools or platforms, and emphasizes timeless principles over transient technology trends. Bilgin spent many years as a consultant and architect at Red Hat, working closely with engineering teams to help them adopt emerging technologies and design scalable, resilient distributed systems. Today, he is a product manager at Diagrid, working on cloud native and AI developer tools, where he applies the same pattern-driven thinking to prompt design and AI-assisted software development. His current focus is on capturing Prompt Patterns as a new abstraction layer for working reliably and productively with AI systems.

Contents

Table of Contents

Preface

  1. Why this book exists
  2. Who this book is for
  3. Scope of this book
  4. What this book is not
  5. How to read this book
  6. Online pattern catalog
  7. Introduction

Prompts

  1. Terminology
  2. Prompts and prompting
  3. Prompt and context engineering
  4. Prompt technique

Patterns

  1. What makes a prompt pattern
  2. Pattern structure
  3. Pattern language
  4. Patterns vs. techniques

Design Principles

  1. Software Design Principles
  2. Core Prompting Principles
  3. Objective Framing Principle (OFP)
  4. Information Supply Principle (ISP)
  5. Method Prescription Principle (MPP)
  6. Quality Validation Principle (QVP)
  7. Output Representation Principle (ORP)
  8. Interaction Design Principle (IDP)
  9. Why Principles Are Not Enough

Pattern Categories

  1. Prompt Pattern Categories
  2. Objective Framing
  3. Information Supply
  4. Method Prescription
  5. Quality Validation
  6. Output Representation
  7. Interaction Design
  8. Finding the Right Pattern

Patterns List

  1. Part 1: Objective Framing

Task Directive

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Action Command
  7. Problem Statement
  8. Demonstration
  9. Discussion
  10. Resources

Perspective Framing

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Speaker Role
  7. Audience Role
  8. Situational Cue
  9. Discussion
  10. Resources

Judgment Criteria

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Worldview Lens
  7. Stance Cue
  8. Discussion
  9. Resources

Constraint Scoping

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Inclusion Scoping
  7. Exclusion Scoping
  8. Discussion
  9. Resources

Example-Driven Specification

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Demonstration Examples
  7. Contrastive Examples
  8. Convention Mirroring
  9. Discussion
  10. Resources

Summary

  1. Part 2: Information Supply

Context Loading

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Context Stuffing
  7. Context Retrieval
  8. Discussion
  9. Resources

Context Curation

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Context Scoping
  7. Context Reconstruction
  8. Discussion
  9. Resources

Structural Segmentation

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Region Labeling
  7. Data Isolation
  8. Discussion
  9. Resources

Summary

  1. Part 3: Method Prescription

Alternative Enumeration

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Breadth Enumeration
  7. Dimensional Enumeration
  8. Discussion
  9. Resources

Hierarchical Decomposition

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Component Decomposition
  7. Recursive Decomposition
  8. Discussion
  9. Resources

Dependency Decomposition

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Sequential Dependency
  7. Self-Directed Dependency
  8. Discussion
  9. Resources

Stepwise Decomposition

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Step-by-Step Instruction
  7. Demonstrated Reasoning
  8. Incremental Stepping
  9. Discussion
  10. Resources

Multi-Path Reasoning

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Majority Voting
  7. Self-Selection
  8. Discussion
  9. Resources

Governing Abstraction

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Step-Back Questioning
  7. Principle Derivation
  8. Discussion
  9. Resources

Summary

  1. Part 4: Quality Validation

Knowledge Externalization

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Premise Generation
  7. Staged Externalization
  8. Discussion
  9. Resources

Deferred Commitment

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Inline Deferred Commitment
  7. Staged Deferred Commitment
  8. Discussion
  9. Resources

Reflective Evaluation

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Self-Critique
  7. Claim Verification
  8. Confidence Gating
  9. Discussion
  10. Resources

Claim Enumeration

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Claim Extraction
  7. Assumption Extraction
  8. Discussion
  9. Resources

Summary

  1. Part 5: Output Representation

Semantic Compression

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Semantic Condensation
  7. Selective Reduction
  8. Progressive Compression
  9. Discussion
  10. Resources

Response Tail

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Disclosure Tail
  7. Continuation Tail
  8. Discussion
  9. Resources

Answer Boundary

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Open Answer
  7. Constrained Answer
  8. Discussion
  9. Resources

Output Template

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Section Template
  7. Field Template
  8. Slot Filling
  9. Discussion
  10. Resources

Formal Representation

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Schema Constraining
  7. Notation Encoding
  8. Discussion
  9. Resources

Summary

  1. Part 6: Interaction Design

Control Reversal

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Progressive Discovery
  7. Structured Elicitation
  8. Discussion
  9. Resources

Interpretation Grammar

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Term Definition
  7. Operator Definition
  8. Notation Definition
  9. Discussion
  10. Resources

Meta Prompting

  1. Definition
  2. Problem
  3. Solution
  4. Mechanism
  5. Techniques
  6. Prompt Refinement
  7. Prompt Generation
  8. Prompt Selection
  9. Prompt Templating
  10. Discussion
  11. Resources

Summary

  1. Afterword

About the Author

Recommended Resources

  1. Books
  2. Courses
  3. Videos
  4. Papers
  5. Websites
  6. Articles
  7. Repositories
  8. Services and Tools
  9. Communities

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