The Anthropic Prompt Engineering Overview is the official guide from Anthropic that provides systematic methods and best practices for prompt engineering with Claude.
This guide focuses on success criteria that can be controlled through prompt engineering, offering developers a complete methodology from basic to advanced techniques. Before using this guide, you need clear success criteria, empirical testing methods, and an initial prompt draft.
The guide covers key aspects including output quality, response format, content relevance, and tone. It presents techniques in order of effectiveness:
- Clear Communication - Use specific instructions and clear task descriptions
- Examples - Provide input-output pairs and demonstrate desired responses
- Chain-of-Thought - Have Claude show reasoning process
- XML Tags - Structure prompt content clearly
- Role Assignment - Define Claude’s role and behavior
- Response Priming - Guide response format and style
- Complex Prompts - Break down complex tasks
- Long Context - Leverage Claude’s context window effectively
The guide also covers best practices for testing, evaluation, debugging, and continuous improvement of prompts.