Prompting Skill track
Prompt Engineering
The moves that take your prompts from vague to executable.
A short, practical track on writing prompts that produce useful output the first time. Four modules, a handful of drills, and a capstone quiz. About 45 minutes end to end.
Take the diagnostic first.
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Start the diagnosticBy the end of this track, you will
- Write prompts the model can act on without guessing.
- Use examples to encode tone, format, and edge cases.
- Spot the situations where chain-of-thought actually helps.
- Stack constraints that the model respects instead of ignores.
Syllabus
Module 1
Shape your prompts
Four moves that take a one-line request from vague to executable. Start here if you mostly write prompts the way you write Google searches.
- LWhy one-line prompts fail~6 min
- LA worked example~5 min
- DDrill: rank the improvements~4 min
- LFailure modes: when the four moves backfire~6 min
- DDrill: spot the weak parts~5 min
- LApply it to your own work~8 min
- DDrill: iterate after a bad first response~6 min
Module 2
Few-shot and examples
One good example beats a paragraph of description. When to use examples, how many, and the three ways they go wrong.
- LWhy examples work~5 min
- LThree mistakes with examples~6 min
- DDrill: spot the bad example~3 min
- LExamples for structured outputs~6 min
- DDrill: improve with examples~4 min
- LApply examples to your own work~8 min
- DDrill: find the broken examples~5 min
Module 3
Chain of thought
The cheap reliability trick: ask the model to think before answering. Works on logic and analysis, less useful on generation.
- LWhen thinking out loud helps~5 min
- LStructuring the thinking~5 min
- DDrill: which task benefits most~3 min
- LAuditing the reasoning~6 min
- DDrill: design the skeleton~5 min
- LApply structured thinking to your own work~8 min
- DDrill: trust the reasoning?~5 min
Module 4
Constraint stacking
Specific, checkable rules make the difference between an almost-right draft and a ship-ready one. The three tiers, the do-not list, and when stacking goes too far.
- LMake the constraints checkable~5 min
- LThe do and do-not pair~4 min
- DDrill: stack the constraints~4 min
- LWhen stacking goes too far~6 min
- DDrill: spot the over-stacking~5 min
- LApply constraint stacking to your own work~8 min
- DDrill: rescue the over-stacked prompt~5 min
Module 5
Capstone
Eight questions across the four modules. Clear 70% to earn the certificate.
- QFinal quiz~14 min