---
type: entity
subtype: tool
title: "Prompt Engineering Guide"
description: "promptingguide.ai, the free resource Cole names as the single prompt-engineering guide worth studying end to end."
resource: "https://www.promptingguide.ai/"
tags: [integration, productivity, prompt-engineering, llm, prompting]
videos: [prompt-engineering-is-a-bunch-of-bs-heres-the-5-of-it-to-learn, the-only-ai-developer-roadmap-you-need-in-2024]
created: 2026-07-21
updated: 2026-07-21
---

# Prompt Engineering Guide

The Prompt Engineering Guide (promptingguide.ai) is a free web reference that catalogs every named prompting technique, from the basics through agent-era patterns, plus a prompt hub and a section on LLM research findings. It is the only prompt-engineering resource Cole recommends by name, and he recommends it precisely because it lets you finish the subject: "what I've actually found on the internet is a really really wonderful prompt engineering guide uh it's literally called prompt engineering guide I'll have a link to it in the description" [0:00:28]. In his 2024 roadmap he repeats the pick with the same framing, "there's just one resource that I highly recommend checking out which is prompting guide. it's a website that brings you through all the prompt engineering techniques" [0:04:07].

The guide matters to Cole mostly as a **time box**. His position on [Prompt Engineering](../../concepts/prompt-engineering.md) is deflationary: "there are a few techniques that are really really good to know don't get me wrong prompt engineering is important but most of it is just fluff it's just a bunch of BS" [0:00:43], and against the gurus selling it as a career, "it is not worth spending a ton of time on promp engineering there are a lot of YouTube gurus out there that tell you that prompt engineering is the most important thing" [0:03:53]. The prescription is concrete: "in general just study prompt engineering for like 3 to 5 hours and then go build what you want to build don't spend 20 hours 40 hours 100 hours" [0:00:57]. One good reference, a few hours, then [Learn by Building](../../concepts/learn-by-building.md).

What to actually read there is a short list. He points at the first six basic techniques, "things like Chain of Thought self-reflection one shot few shot all the different prompt engineering techniques because you want to have that in your back pocket" [0:04:21], and then singles out ReAct as the one that is not optional, because reason-plus-act is the mechanism agents run on rather than a prompting trick. That is the bridge from prompting to [The Agent Loop (Reason-Act-Observe)](../../concepts/agent-loop.md), and it is why the guide keeps earning its place in the roadmap even as the rest of prompt engineering gets compressed.

## Realizes

- [Prompt Engineering](../../concepts/prompt-engineering.md) - the discipline the guide catalogs end to end, and which Cole deliberately time-boxes.
- [Zero-Shot Prompting](../../concepts/zero-shot-prompting.md) - one of the first six basics he says to learn and move on from.
- [Few-Shot Prompting](../../concepts/few-shot-prompting.md) - the example-driven technique named in both roadmap passes.
- [Chain-of-Thought Prompting](../../concepts/chain-of-thought.md) - the technique he cites first when listing what is worth knowing.
- [Self-Criticism Prompting](../../concepts/self-criticism-prompting.md) - the self-reflection pattern he calls super important alongside ReAct.
- [The Agent Loop (Reason-Act-Observe)](../../concepts/agent-loop.md) - the ReAct framing he flags as the core of agents, not fluff.

## Part of

- [AI Agent Learning Roadmap](../../concepts/ai-agent-learning-roadmap.md) - the prompt-engineering step, explicitly capped at a few hours before moving on.

## Related

- [Effective Prompting](../../concepts/effective-prompting.md) - the small set of habits that survive once the fluff is cut.
- [Agent Prompting Techniques](../../concepts/agent-prompting.md) - how these techniques change when the prompt drives an agent instead of a chat.
- [System Prompt Engineering](../../concepts/system-prompt-engineering.md) - the four-part system-prompt structure Cole actually writes.
- [Prompting Techniques for AI Coding](../../concepts/ai-coding-prompting.md) - the coding-assistant flavor of the same skill.
- [Capabilities Over Tools](../../concepts/capabilities-over-tools.md) - learn the capability, not the technique catalog.
- [Learn by Building](../../concepts/learn-by-building.md) - what to do with the hours you just saved.

## Sources

- ["Prompt Engineering" is a Bunch of BS - Here's the 5% of it to Learn](../../sources/prompt-engineering-is-a-bunch-of-bs-heres-the-5-of-it-to-learn.md) - "[0:00:28] what I've actually found on the internet is a really really wonderful prompt engineering guide uh it's literally called prompt engineering guide I'll have a link to it in the description"
- ["Prompt Engineering" is a Bunch of BS - Here's the 5% of it to Learn](../../sources/prompt-engineering-is-a-bunch-of-bs-heres-the-5-of-it-to-learn.md) - "[0:00:43] there are a few techniques that are really really good to know don't get me wrong prompt engineering is important but most of it is just fluff it's just a bunch of BS"
- ["Prompt Engineering" is a Bunch of BS - Here's the 5% of it to Learn](../../sources/prompt-engineering-is-a-bunch-of-bs-heres-the-5-of-it-to-learn.md) - "[0:00:57] in general just study prompt engineering for like 3 to 5 hours and then go build what you want to build don't spend 20 hours 40 hours 100 hours"
- [The ONLY AI Developer Roadmap You Need in 2024](../../sources/the-only-ai-developer-roadmap-you-need-in-2024.md) - "[0:04:07] there's just one resource that I highly recommend checking out which is prompting guide. it's a website that brings you through all the prompt engineering techniques"
- [The ONLY AI Developer Roadmap You Need in 2024](../../sources/the-only-ai-developer-roadmap-you-need-in-2024.md) - "[0:03:53] it is not worth spending a ton of time on promp engineering there are a lot of YouTube gurus out there that tell you that prompt engineering is the most important thing"
- [The ONLY AI Developer Roadmap You Need in 2024](../../sources/the-only-ai-developer-roadmap-you-need-in-2024.md) - "[0:04:21] things like Chain of Thought self-reflection one shot few shot all the different prompt engineering techniques because you want to have that in your back pocket"
