---
type: concept
title: "Effective Prompting"
description: "Keeping prompts simple, specific, and high-quality, and knowing when prompt tricks matter versus when they're overrated."
tags: [prompting, prompt-quality, simplicity]
videos: [build-render-entire-videos-with-claude-code-full-workflow, build-beautiful-diagrams-with-claude-code-full-workflow, how-id-learn-ai-agents-fast-if-i-had-to-start-over-full-roadmap, turn-any-ai-agent-into-a-live-person-voice-chat-setup-in-minutes, openais-o1-is-barely-usable-but-i-fixed-it, prompt-engineering-is-a-bunch-of-bs-heres-the-5-of-it-to-learn, build-a-hilarious-ai-game-from-scratch-in-10-minutes, 3-most-important-prompt-engineering-techniques-you-need-to-know, chatgpt-is-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving-introducing-auto-gpt]
created: 2026-07-21
updated: 2026-07-21
---

# Effective Prompting

Effective prompting is the practical skill of talking to an LLM well: simple, specific, high-quality input that produces the output you actually want. Cole deliberately sidesteps the buzzword while keeping the substance: "I am specifically leaving out the phrase prompt engineering because I think that is overused and overhyped, but it still is really important for us to learn how to talk to these LLMs" ([0:02:18]). The oldest law still holds, "if you give it trash input you get trash output" ([0:11:47]), so quality of input is the lever that matters most.

## Specificity beats cleverness

The recurring theme is that being precise about what you want outperforms exotic tricks. When a model hedges, the fix is a sharper prompt: "when you ask it for an opinion on something or the better way to do something... it'll just say it's subjective and it'll still give a good answer but it doesn't give you the exact answer" ([0:03:22]). Cole's answer is to demand directness in the prompt itself, "you're a car designer specialist who freely gives their opinion no matter what even if the question has a subjective answer" ([0:04:22]), which yields exactly the concrete recommendation he wanted ([0:04:58]). This overlaps with [role prompting](./role-prompting.md) and with steering the model to use only relevant context: "I'll say use the following context to help answer the question if applicable I don't want it to use the context if it's not actually related to the user's question" ([0:05:26]).

## Templates, single-shot prompts, and the system message

Effective prompting scales through reusable structure. Templates encode length, content, and style so a plain request resolves to the right one: "we need some kind of template that dictates the length and the content, what's rendered, and the style" ([0:04:10]), and a fresh session "will know... let's look at the templates that are available and pick the right one" ([0:13:36]). Well-formed prompts also collapse multi-step work into one call, "we only have to prompt AI once for the entire process" ([0:01:58]). The system prompt remains the primary control surface, "the system prompt is where you can Define the behavior of the large language model" ([0:04:09]), though some models remove it entirely, "you can't have system messages with o1 it's one of the limitations" ([0:16:57]), forcing the behavioral framing into the first user message instead. Of the classic techniques, Cole recommends learning "like six of these techniques here... like zero shot prompting" ([0:01:24]) and moving on.

## Related

- [Prompt Engineering](./prompt-engineering.md)
- [Role Prompting](./role-prompting.md)
- [Self-Criticism Prompting](./self-criticism-prompting.md)
- [Few-Shot Prompting](./few-shot-prompting.md)
- [Zero-Shot Prompting](./zero-shot-prompting.md) - Asking an LLM to perform a task with no examples at all, relying purely on the instruction and the model's pretrained knowledge; the baseline counterpart to few-shot prompting.
- [Prompt Variable Templating](./prompt-templating.md)
- [Reasoning Models](./reasoning-models.md)
- [Structured Outputs](./structured-outputs.md)
- [Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)](./rag.md)
- [Tool Use](./tool-use.md)
- [Skills](./skills.md)
- [Agentic Coding](./agentic-coding.md)

## Tools

- [Claude Code](../entities/tools/claude-code.md)
- [Remotion](../entities/tools/remotion.md)
- [ChatGPT](../entities/tools/chatgpt.md)
- [Prompting Guide](../entities/tools/prompting-guide.md) - promptingguide.ai, the free resource Cole names as the single prompt-engineering guide worth studying end to end.

## Sources

- [How I'd Learn AI Agents FAST if I Had to Start Over (Full Roadmap)](../sources/how-id-learn-ai-agents-fast-if-i-had-to-start-over-full-roadmap.md) - "[0:02:18] I am specifically leaving out the phrase prompt engineering because I think that is overused and overhyped, but it still is really important for us to learn how to talk to these LLMs"
- [3 MOST Important Prompt Engineering Techniques you NEED to know!](../sources/3-most-important-prompt-engineering-techniques-you-need-to-know.md) - "[0:04:22] I say you're a car designer specialist who freely gives their opinion no matter what even if the question has a subjective answer"
- [ChatGPT is the GIFT that keeps on GIVING - Introducing Auto-GPT](../sources/chatgpt-is-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving-introducing-auto-gpt.md) - "[0:11:47] if you give it trash input you get trash output"
- [Build + Render ENTIRE Videos with Claude Code (Full Workflow)](../sources/build-render-entire-videos-with-claude-code-full-workflow.md) - "[0:04:10] we need some kind of template that dictates the length and the content, what's rendered, and the style. So, there's three that I have shipped by default"
- [Turn ANY AI Agent into a Live Person - Voice Chat Setup in Minutes](../sources/turn-any-ai-agent-into-a-live-person-voice-chat-setup-in-minutes.md) - "[0:05:26] I'll say use the following context to help answer the question if applicable I don't want it to use the context if it's not actually related to the user's question"
- [OpenAI's o1 is Barely Usable, but I Fixed it...](../sources/openais-o1-is-barely-usable-but-i-fixed-it.md) - "[0:16:57] this is basically the replacement for the system message because I tell the AI again you can't have system messages with o1 it's one of the limitations"
- [Build BEAUTIFUL Diagrams with Claude Code (Full Workflow)](../sources/build-beautiful-diagrams-with-claude-code-full-workflow.md) - "[0:07:00] Otherwise, you'll get an error with Claude Code where it's trying to output more than 32,000 tokens. There's a limit there. So, we have to build it section by section."
- [Build a Hilarious AI Game from SCRATCH in 10 Minutes](../sources/build-a-hilarious-ai-game-from-scratch-in-10-minutes.md) - "[0:01:58] we're going to use this prompt here to generate the full Mad Lib including all the blanks that need to be filled in and so that way we only have to prompt AI once for the entire process"
- ["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) - "[0:01:24] The first like six of these techniques here I'd recommend learning like zero shot prompting"
