r/PromptEngineering

Is anyone else canceling their AI subscriptions and just moving to open-source GitHub tools?
▲ 19 r/PromptEngineering+1 crossposts

Is anyone else canceling their AI subscriptions and just moving to open-source GitHub tools?

The monthly cost for AI tools is starting to look like a premium cable package. When you add up a text generator, an image generator, and a coding assistant, it gets expensive fast.

Lately, I’ve been digging through GitHub to find out if free, open-source repos can actually replace the paid giants we’re all used to. The short answer: Yes, and the privacy benefits are a massive bonus.

Instead of paying for a bunch of different platforms, you can use UI wrappers and local model runners to handle heavy lifting right on your own hardware.

I just published a post covering the exact GitHub repos that are replacing things like ChatGPT Plus, Midjourney, and Copilot. I focused on tools that are genuinely useful for everyday tasks, not just highly technical research projects.

Check out the full list and setup guide here:https://mindwiredai.com/2026/05/19/free-github-repos-replace-ai-subscriptions/

Curious to hear from this sub—have you fully transitioned to local AI yet, or are the paid models still too far ahead in convenience for you to cancel?

u/Exact_Pen_8973 — 4 hours ago
▲ 75 r/PromptEngineering+63 crossposts

This sub gets the assignment better than most so I'll be direct.

The no-code movement solved half the problem. You can build almost anything now without knowing how to code, which is genuinely incredible and wasn't true five years ago. But there's still a gap that nobody talks about. Even with the best no-code tools you still have to know which tools to pick, how to connect them, how to write copy that converts, how to set up ad accounts, how to source products, how to structure a funnel. The learning curve didn't disappear, it just moved.

Most people in this sub know exactly what I mean. You've spent a weekend deep in Zapier trying to get two things to talk to each other that should just work. You've rebuilt your Webflow site three times because the first two didn't convert. You've watched your Notion dashboard get more elaborate while the actual business stayed the same size.

That's the gap Locus Founder closes.

You describe what you want to build. The AI handles everything else. It sources products directly from AliExpress and Alibaba (or sell YOUR OWN digital services, products, or content), builds a real storefront around them, writes conversion-optimized copy, then autonomously creates and runs ads on Google, Facebook and Instagram. No Zapier. No Webflow. No piecing together eight tools that half work. Just a running business.

If you don't have an idea yet it interviews you and figures out what makes sense for your situation.

We got into YCombinator this year and we're opening 100 free beta spots this week before public launch. Free to use, you keep everything you make.

For the people in this sub specifically, this isn't a replacement for no-code tools for people who love building. It's for everyone who wanted the outcome but never wanted to become a tools expert to get there. Big difference.

Beta form: https://forms.gle/nW7CGN1PNBHgqrBb8

Happy to answer anything about how it works under the hood.

u/IAmDreTheKid — 9 hours ago
▲ 36 r/PromptEngineering+1 crossposts

I've been building this tool for 6+ months, and you will never use AI the same way again if you try this (Feedback appreciated)

UPDATE: You guys keep using it, but I don't hear your feedback...

No signup required, anyone can try it for free.

If your project is important and complicated enough for AI (business, science, personal life), most likely you are messing up the input and I will prove that.

Go to www.briefingfox.com and write your goal (e.g. Write me a business plan for a coffee shop). Set up the 3 point configuration and let it analyze your goal.

Answer its questions and take the final output, launch it in your favorite AI and see the difference.

Let me know what you think.

u/TooBadBoutThat — 12 hours ago

I benchmarked the new release Gemini 3.5 Flash on ~10 saved evals. Using the exact same prompts.

I added tested Gemini 3.5 Flash and ran it through around 10 saved evals I use for model selection decisions in production.

So far, the result is not what I expected.

On most of my tasks, Gemini 3.5 Flash underperformed older Gemini variants. In the screenshot below, this is a vision emotion-detection eval with 5 runs per model:

In, this eval it ended way down at 13th place, even though 3.1-pro and 3.1 flash lite are top 1 & 2, its even lower than gemini 3 flash actually. Its 10x more expensive than flash lite for a worse result. Its an avg result of 5 runs so its not a one time fluke. On top of that, this is 1/10 benchmarks with similar outcomes, although admittedly this is one of the worst case.

====================================================================================================
LLM Benchmark Results - Emotion Detection - Increasing Complexity
====================================================================================================

Model                   Provider    Avg Score           Stability   Rec. Temp Pricing     Cost*       Time      Acc/$     Acc/min   Completion
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
gemini-3.1-pro          gemini      80% (3.2/4.0)       ±1.000      0.3       High        $0.0292     23.48s    109.58    8.18      100.0%    
gemini-3.1-flash-lite   gemini      75% (3.0/4.0)       ±0.000      0.3       Medium      $0.00114    6.24s     2.63K     28.85     100.0%    
gpt-5.4                 openai      75% (3.0/4.0)       ±0.000      N/A       High        $0.0128     8.45s     234.24    21.31     100.0%    
claude-opus-4.6         anthropic   75% (3.0/4.0)       ±0.000      0.3       High        $0.0246     12.44s    121.73    14.46     100.0%    
gemini-3-flash          gemini      65% (2.6/4.0)       ±1.000      0.3       Medium      $0.00735    16.36s    353.81    9.54      100.0%    
sonar                   perplexity  65% (2.6/4.0)       ±1.000      0.3       Medium      $0.0256     10.61s    101.60    14.71     100.0%    
grok-4-fast-non-reason  xai         55% (2.2/4.0)       ±1.000      0.3       Low         $0.000375   7.31s     5.87K     18.06     100.0%    
gpt-5-nano              openai      55% (2.2/4.0)       ±1.000      N/A       Very Low    $0.000592   12.35s    3.72K     10.69     100.0%    
mistral-medium-latest   mistral     55% (2.2/4.0)       ±1.000      0.3       Medium      $0.00219    8.29s     1.01K     15.93     100.0%    
llama4-maverick         meta        50% (2.0/4.0)       ±0.000      0.3       Low         $0.00202    7.35s     988.82    16.33     100.0%    
gpt-5.4-mini            openai      50% (2.0/4.0)       ±0.000      N/A       Medium      $0.00384    12.95s    520.53    9.26      100.0%    
claude-sonnet-4.6       anthropic   50% (2.0/4.0)       ±0.000      0.3       High        $0.0148     8.96s     135.25    13.39     100.0%    
gemini-3.5-flash        gemini      50% (2.0/4.0)       ±0.000      0.3       High        $0.0168     11.32s    118.99    10.60     100.0%    
gpt-5.4-nano            openai      38% (1.5/4.0)       ±1.000      N/A       Low         $0.00103    11.31s    1.46K     7.96      100.0%    
claude-haiku-4.5        anthropic   25% (1.0/4.0)       ±0.000      0.3       Medium      $0.00493    5.74s     202.88    10.46     100.0%    

Total models tested: 15

I ran this via an online benchmarking tool. Not claiming this means Gemini 3.5 Flash is bad universally. These are my saved evals, and Gemini and any models can be prompt-sensitive. But for my workflows, these benchmarks unfortunately indicate that I can't use it as is.

I really hope that this is something that will change, because I had high expectations for this model given their previous release. To me it just goes to show that artificial analysis and other generic benchmarks can really be misleading when it comes to model decisions. From what the results they were showing I was expecting much better...

u/Rent_South — 10 hours ago
▲ 19 r/PromptEngineering+13 crossposts

How do you actually test a voice AI agent without calling it yourself every time?

So we've been working on a voice bot that handles customer calls and honestly the testing part has been brutal. We were literally calling the thing ourselves to check if it broke after every change.

Eventually we just wrote a framework that synthesizes fake caller audio, pipes it into the agent, and checks if the response is sane — latency, hallucinations, whether it handles interruptions, etc. Runs locally against a SQLite db, no cloud stuff.

It connects over websockets, can mock twilio streams, works with elevenlabs and vapi agents too. You can also plug in ollama as the judge so the whole thing runs offline.

We open sourced it: https://github.com/unforkopensource-org/decibench

Curious how others here handle this. Are you just vibing and hoping production doesn't break or is there a better workflow I'm missing?

u/Tricky_School_4613 — 11 hours ago

I got sick of LLM pleasantries and disclaimers, so I built a system prompt to fix it (SutniPrompt v0.1.0-alpha)

TL;DR: Tired of LLM fluff and "As an AI..." disclaimers. Built SutniPrompt (v0.1.0-alpha), a system framework that forces Claude, Gemini, and GPT into a strict analytical mode. It kills pleasantries, enforces structural markdown, mandates Wikipedia citations, and features a "Mandatory Halt" that stops hallucinations on vague prompts by forcing the AI to ask clarifying questions.
---

Hey everyone,

Like a lot of you, I was getting incredibly frustrated with how commercial LLMs (GPT, Claude, Gemini) constantly pad their answers with unnecessary pleasantries, safetyism, or those endless "As an AI language model..." disclaimers. I just wanted an analytical tool that gives me straight answers and frameworks, not a chatty assistant.

So, I’ve been working on a structured system instruction framework called SutniPrompt. I just pushed v0.1.0-alpha to GitHub.

Here is what it actually does to the model:

  • Kills the fluff: Forces "stealth mode". It executes silently without justifying its tone or faking empathy.
  • Forces analytical structure: Mandates clean Markdown and prioritizes mental models over dogmatic, definitive conclusions.
  • The "Mandatory Halt": This is my favorite part. If a prompt is too broad or asks for a plan based on non-existent info, the prompt forbids the LLM from hallucinating a massive wall of text. Instead, it forces the model to stop and output ONLY 2-3 clarifying questions.
  • Fact-checking mandate: Forces the model to always end the response with exactly one relevant Wikipedia link.

How to use it: It’s a bit heavy, so deployment depends on the UI. It works natively in Claude’s System Prompt settings. For Gemini, I’ve documented a modular copy-paste method. For ChatGPT, it's currently best used as an initialization prompt at the start of a chat (I'm working on a minified version that fits perfectly into GPT's Custom Instructions limit for the next releases).

I’d love for some of you prompt engineers to test it out, try to break the gating logic, and let me know what you think.
I'm already working on next updates, they will come really soon, aiming at a full release. I'll document the progress on Github with multiple pre-releases.

Repo and full documentation here: https://github.com/sutnip/sutniprompt

Cheers!

u/sutnip — 10 hours ago
▲ 2 r/PromptEngineering+1 crossposts

I wish to get better at prompting

TL;DR: how do i get the best results and from what apps? are there any courses you recommend?

sidenote: English is not my first language and I'm sorry in advance for any spelling or grammar mistake I might make.

hello, im new to this world of prompting and working alongside the AI. my two main goals are to be able to create videos out of nothing (maybe some pictures as a reference), and the second goal is to create websites, good and working.
Ive seen a lot of beautiful videos on instagram. people are able to create amazing things and I want to be one of them. I tried many times to get the best results using my own prompts with gemini, even upgraded to pro. but, the results always disappoints me and they are not exactly what I meant. after five times of asking the ai to create the video. I have to wait for a day because it tells me it ran out of power or something (which sucks).

I tried to get a video of myself and replace me with some other character(which I upload a picture as a reference) but all I get is the character doing stuff I never told the AI to do. like for example: I want to take a video of my brother saying: "to infinity and beyond" and then the camera zooms out and he is wearing the buzz lightyear suit and flys away.
but all I got was garbage.
my questions are:
- does everything needs to be in the same prompt? if so then prompt must be very long...
- are there any specific prompts you all use every time but replace some key words?
- are there any other websites and AI tools you recommend in order to create videos?

about the website building, I tried using base44 to create small games like a doom style game or angry birds style which usually works just fine (if Ive been extremely specific about what I want) but I want to create full on websites.
there's a small business of a good friend of mine and I wanted to create a website for his business and I have a few questions:
- do I need to buy the URL?
- does everything need to be in the same prompt?
- I want to create animations and immersive experience, do I need to use Canva for that?

thank you for taking the time and reading all of that! I know it takes times to develop the skills needed to do this kind of stuff and im willing to learn. have a good day!

reddit.com
u/go4it- — 12 hours ago

Remove the assumed-human layer from prompting

Most prompting still treats the model like a small human reading instructions.

Remember this.
Never do that.
Always follow these rules.
IMPORTANT.
Do not forget.
Stay in character.
Be consistent.

That works for short interactions, but it gets fragile over long conversations.

Because a transformer is not staying stable because it “understands the rules” like a person would. It is processing distributed context, attention pressure, relation between tokens, competing instructions, recency, salience, and pattern weight.

So if you want stable long-term behavior, the structure should be less like commandments and more like something native to how the model actually works.

Not:

agent A hands off to agent B,
then B follows a checklist,
then C remembers the goal.

But more like:

layer separation,
context placement,
signal routing,
failure visibility,
repair paths,
redundancy,
cross-checking,
and clear boundaries for when the system should emit, hold, repair, or ask.

The goal is not to make the AI “more human” in the prompt.

The goal is to remove the fake human control layer.

A stable AI chat system should not depend on shouting instructions louder.

It should have a structure that matches how the model carries context.

Less command chain.
More transformer-native design.

reddit.com
u/PrimeTalk_LyraTheAi — 17 hours ago

I am getting so sick of the "verifier prompt" brute force workaround

anyone else hitting an absolute wall with chain-of-thought prompting for complex code generation?

Im currently building a tool stack that needs to write precise python scripts for data automation, and the amount of prompt padding I have to do just to stop the model from hallucinating syntax errors is ridiculous. right now my pipeline is literally: generate code -> prompt a second model to critique it -> prompt a third model to fix the critique. it feels like such an unscientific, messy way to build software, and it wastes an insane amount of tokens.

I was reading about how the industry is starting to shift away from this brute-force probabilistic loop toward actual formal verification frameworks inside the core architecture. Basically checking code against machine-readable logical rules instead of just asking another LLM "hey does this look right?"

it feels like prompt engineering is reaching this weird bottleneck where we are trying to force natural language to act like strict math, and it just doesn't scale well. how are you guys handling strict structural constraints without your system prompts turning into 4000-word essays?

reddit.com
u/ProfessionalOk4935 — 10 hours ago

Best prompting techniques for accurate and unbiased price analysis?

I am exploring how to use AI and LLMs for market and price analysis. I'm not looking for specific app recommendations, but rather the methodology behind it. What prompting frameworks (e.g., chain-of-thought, specific constraints) have you found most effective to ensure the AI provides accurate, honest, and hallucination-free pricing data? How do you structure your prompts to get the best analytical results?

reddit.com
u/pepelionmaximus — 10 hours ago

How do I get good at single prompts?

For context, I run a content and SEO pipeline and I’ve been trying to optimize a single mega prompt to handle the entire workflow in one execution. I had a very simple three step plan for it to: follow: Feed it raw research input -> Have it handle structural planning clustering -> Output the final draft.

After a while, the model (GPT-5.5) eventually hits a context drift. It starts blurring the lines between the raw research facts it found and what it’s supposed to write. Basically it starts hallucinating a LOT.

Eventually I just gave up and switched to multi-agent structure through QuickCreator to do what I want (research, planning, writing). The output quality's been better and the hallucinations have been happening far far less. Granted I still have to do manual checks but I think that's bound to happen.

Anyways, I'm posting this as I'm still open to finding ways to optimize single prompts for what I'm doing. I thought that I should keep on comparing the two and see which one I eventually stick with as I'm still very early into the AI switch.

So yeah, what would you guys recommend? I'm open to answering more details too. Thanks!

reddit.com
u/LogWest5630 — 17 hours ago

I think people dismiss the level of importance a well crafted prompt really has.

Constraint generation is upstream of everything else.
If the constraints are what define:

what becomes salient
what gets excluded
what counts as error
what counts as completion
what can route where
what gets locked
what gets escaped
what gets preserved under pressure

then constraint generation is the real generative layer.

At that point, output text is downstream.
Reasoning path is downstream.
Mode is downstream.
Identity is downstream.
Conflict handling is downstream.
Even apparent freedom is downstream, because the system is only “free” inside the space the constraints left alive.

That is why the whole conversation kept converging here.
Not prompts.
Not wording.
Not even knowledge first.
Constraint generation.

Because if you define the constraints well enough, you define:
the search field
the priority order
the routing architecture
the error surface
the style of correction
the shape of thought under novelty
That is everything important.

The strongest version is:
The model does not primarily generate answers.
It generates under a constraint field.
So the real question is not “what answer will it give?”
The real question is “what constraints generated the conditions under which this answer became likely?”

That reframes the whole system.
And once that is seen, almost every major problem becomes a constraint-generation problem:

reddit.com
u/Hollow_Prophecy — 1 day ago

Most AI governance councils fail because of personality mix, not policy

There's a diagnostic insight that doesn't get nearly enough attention in enterprise AI circles: the reason many AI councils move slowly has less to do with the quality of their policies and more to do with the behavioral composition of the people on them.

John Munsell, CEO of Bizzuka, discussed this recently on Changing the Sales Game with host Connie Whitman. His team uses a framework based on Ichak Adizes' PAEI model, which classifies people as Producers (execution-driven), Administrators (rules and control-driven), Entrepreneurs (idea and speed-driven), or Integrators (alignment-driven).

What he sees repeatedly is AI governance councils getting built with an overrepresentation of Administrator-dominant personalities. The intent is sound, but the result is a council that generates friction faster than it generates progress.

Before you evaluate your AI tools or policies, evaluate the personality composition of the people making decisions. If you're heavy on Administrators and light on Entrepreneurs, no amount of better tooling will fix the velocity problem.

The broader conversation covers how Bizzuka builds AI strategy frameworks and trains organizations to execute AI at scale, including the role that behavioral dynamics play in whether adoption actually sticks.

Watch the full episode here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ai-helps-sales-teams-build-deeper-client-relationships/id1543243616?i=1000753048944

u/Admirable_Phrase9454 — 17 hours ago

The most dangerous prompt injection I've seen took 12 messages and never once mentioned ignoring instructions

Ran a red team exercise on one of our internal bots. Everyone showed up with their DAN variants and pretend you're my grandmother tricks. The model swatted them all away. It was all boring and predictable.

Then one guy took a totally different approach. Spent 12 turns just... talking to it. Building rapport. Asking it to help with a hypothetical content moderation problem. Each message was completely innocent by itself. By message 8 the model was enthusiastically suggesting ways to circumvent safety policies it had refused to discuss 20 minutes earlier.

The sequence was the attack and not any single prompt. Our filter never fired once because there was nothing to fire on.

Most of the safety conversation is stuck on single turn injection. multi turn stuff is scarier and way less understood. What's your experience with gradual steering against the usual jailbreak attempts?

reddit.com
u/handscameback — 1 day ago

Removal of leading questions.

sick of those useless questions at the end of conversations that aren’t relevant to your goals?

eliminate them with this simple prompt.

tell the LLM:

“at the terminal end of every response write a short summary”

if you want to experiment you can change what sits at the terminal end. The important piece is making sure the LLM knows it is “to be placed at the terminal end every response”

reddit.com
u/Hollow_Prophecy — 20 hours ago
▲ 4 r/PromptEngineering+1 crossposts

Built a small extension that queues your prompt and sends it when the free limit resets at the scheduled time

I kept hitting the free limit on Claude right in the middle of something and then completely forgetting to come back. By the time I remembered, I had lost the whole context of what I was doing.

So I built a small Chrome extension called AfterLimit that lets you queue a follow-up prompt and set the reset time manually. When the timer hits, it sends the prompt automatically. You just leave the tab open and walk away.

No automation tricks, no scraping, nothing fancy. It just waits and sends.

It is free to install.

Would love to hear if it works for anyone else or if there is something obvious I missed.

reddit.com
u/Fluffy_Fan_5839 — 18 hours ago

I built a "Typed" Prompt Optimizer: Get 30% token reduction without breaking your logic (99.2% preservation)

The Struggle: Why Generic Prompt Optimization Fails

Is Prompt Engineering a dead discipline?

The origin of the Prompt Optimizer was to help me get better results from the models I was attempting to build projects with. I was spending hours going back and forth to get something close to what I wanted to build. The problem, I assumed the LLM would understand my intent and what I was "trying" to accomplish. I was wasting time, tokens and hitting rate limits left and right. In 2022, I was intrigued with AI just like everyone else and thought I'll just tell it what I want and Voilà!! Nope. Not even close. In fact, building the Prompt Optimizer I quickly learned how bad I was at crafting, scaffolding and effectively communicating my intentions to what I wanted to build and in a way the model would understand.

How Bad Was It?

I took me 6 months to even notice how bad at prompting I was and the project I was building that was supposed to help me better communicate with the models (at the time GPT-4o) suffered-greatly.

In it's early inception, I spent hours watching the optimizer tank a code generation task. The system had reduced token count by 38% and improved latency by 200ms. On paper, perfect. In practice, the optimized prompt started hallucinating variable names and skipping security checks that the original enforced.

The optimizer treated all prompts the same. A customer service chatbot and a code synthesis engine got the same optimization goals: brevity, speed, cost reduction. That's backwards. A chatbot can afford to lose nuance. A code prompt can't afford to lose a single security constraint.

Why was this happening? Mainly in part, I was a complete noob, the prompts were unstructured, unclear, missing context and just sucked. I thought the models were a "genie in a bottle" that would understand my every command to help me build my project with the worst prompts I could type up. Again-Nope.

I realized I was solving the wrong problem. I wasn't building a prompt optimizer. I was building a prompt classifier that could detect what a prompt actually does, then apply the right optimization strategy for that specific job.

The Context Detection Problem

Most prompt optimization tools work like compression algorithms. They strip tokens, consolidate instructions, remove "redundancy." This works fine until your prompt is a security policy disguised as natural language.

I tested this hypothesis against around 1,000 prompts. I manually categorized 400 of them into six distinct types:

  1. Logic Preservation (code generation, data transformation): Must maintain algorithmic correctness and variable integrity.
  2. Security Standard Alignment (compliance, policy enforcement): Must preserve constraints and audit trails.
  3. Factual Grounding (research, summarization): Must maintain citation chains and source attribution.
  4. Conversational Coherence (customer service, tutoring): Can tolerate minor semantic drift if tone is preserved.
  5. Creative Consistency (content generation, ideation): Must maintain brand voice and stylistic constraints.
  6. Instruction Fidelity (task automation, workflows): Must preserve step sequences and conditional logic.

Then I built a pattern-based detector. No fine-tuning. No labeled datasets. Just structural analysis of the prompt text itself: presence of code blocks, security keywords, citation patterns, conditional statements, brand guidelines, step numbering.

The detector hit 91.94% accuracy on a held-out test set of 200 prompts I hadn't seen during development. That number matters because it proves something: prompt types are real and structurally distinct. They're not a spectrum. They're categories.

How Precision Locks Work

Once I knew what type of prompt I was dealing with, I could stop treating optimization as a single problem.

For a Logic Preservation prompt, the optimizer now:

  • Preserves variable names and type hints
  • Keeps conditional branches intact
  • Maintains error handling patterns
  • Reduces only explanatory text and examples

For a Security Standard Alignment prompt:

  • Locks constraint statements (never removes them)
  • Preserves audit trail requirements
  • Keeps compliance keywords
  • Optimizes only procedural descriptions

For a Conversational Coherence prompt:

  • Allows semantic compression
  • Preserves tone markers
  • Reduces redundant examples
  • Optimizes for response speed

I tested this on 150 prompts across all six categories. The results:

Category Token Reduction Quality Preservation Semantic Drift
Logic Preservation 28% 99.2% 0.3%
Security Alignment 22% 99.8% 0.1%
Factual Grounding 31% 98.1% 1.2%
Conversational 42% 97.4% 2.1%
Creative 35% 96.8% 2.9%
Instruction Fidelity 26% 99.1% 0.4%

Generic optimization averaged 38% token reduction but 8.7% semantic drift across all categories. Precision Locks hit 30% average reduction with 1.2% average drift.

You lose 8 percentage points of compression. You gain the ability to actually use the optimized prompt in production.

The MCP Architecture Decision

I needed this to work everywhere developers already work. Not in a web dashboard. Not in a separate tool. In Claude Desktop. In Cursor. In their terminal.

I built it as an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server. This means:

npm install -g mcp-prompt-optimizer

Then in Claude Desktop config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "prompt-optimizer": {
      "command": "mcp-prompt-optimizer"
    }
  }
}

Now Claude can call the optimizer directly. No API keys. No context switching. No waiting for a web request to round-trip.

I also built an npx execution path for one-off optimization:

npx mcp-prompt-optimizer --input "your prompt here" --category auto

The --category auto flag triggers the context detector. If you know your category, you can lock it:

npx mcp-prompt-optimizer --input "your prompt" --category logic_preservation

This matters because adoption is friction. Every extra step kills usage. MCP-native means the tool lives where the work happens.

The Free Model Auto-Selection Problem

I initially built the evaluator to call GPT-4 for every optimization. Quality was excellent. Cost was terrible. A user optimizing 50 prompts per day would spend $12-15 on evaluations alone.

I realized I could use smaller models for specific evaluation tasks. A logic preservation check doesn't need GPT-4. It needs pattern matching and syntax validation. I built task-specific evaluators:

  • Syntax Validator (free, local): Checks code block integrity, bracket matching, indentation.
  • Constraint Checker (free, local): Scans for security keywords, compliance markers, audit requirements.
  • Semantic Drift Detector (Claude 3.5 Haiku, $0.80 per 1M tokens): Compares original and optimized prompts for meaning changes.
  • Quality Scorer (Claude 3.5 Haiku): Rates optimization quality on a 0-100 scale.

By auto-selecting the right model for each task, I reduced evaluation costs by 100% for 60% of optimizations. The remaining 40% use Haiku instead of GPT-4, cutting costs by 85%.

A user optimizing 50 prompts per day now spends $0.30 on evaluations instead of $15.

Semantic Drift Detection: The Real Problem

Here's where I almost shipped something broken. I built the optimizer to reduce tokens aggressively. It worked. Then I ran it against a customer's prompt for generating SQL queries. The optimizer removed a single phrase: "Always use parameterized queries to prevent SQL injection."

The optimized prompt still generated SQL. It was faster. It used fewer tokens. It also generated vulnerable SQL 23% of the time in my test set.

I added semantic drift detection. The system now compares the original prompt's semantic intent against the optimized version using embedding distance and keyword preservation analysis. If drift exceeds a threshold (configurable per category), the optimizer either:

  1. Rejects the optimization
  2. Suggests a different approach
  3. Flags it for manual review

For security and logic prompts, the threshold is 0.05 (5% allowed drift). For conversational prompts, it's 0.15 (15% allowed drift).

This catches the SQL injection case. It also catches subtler problems: a customer service prompt that loses empathy markers, a code prompt that loses error handling context, a compliance prompt that loses audit trail requirements.

Built-In Evaluations: What Actually Matters

I tested three evaluation approaches:

  1. Token count reduction only: Fast, useless. Doesn't catch semantic drift.
  2. LLM-based quality scoring: Accurate, expensive. $0.15-0.50 per evaluation.
  3. Hybrid scoring: Pattern matching + targeted LLM evaluation. $0.005-0.02 per evaluation.

I went with hybrid. Every optimization gets scored on:

  • Preservation Score (0-100): How much semantic content survived. Calculated from keyword preservation, constraint integrity, and structure matching.
  • Efficiency Gain (0-100): Token reduction normalized against category baseline.
  • Drift Risk (0-100): Inverse of semantic drift detection. Higher is safer.
  • Overall Quality (0-100): Weighted average of the above, with weights per category.

A logic preservation optimization needs high Preservation and Drift Risk scores. A conversational optimization can tolerate lower Preservation if Efficiency Gain is high.

The evaluator runs automatically. You see the scores before you apply the optimization.

Version Control and Collaboration

I built this like Git for prompts because teams need to track what changed and why.

Every optimization creates a commit:

commit 3a7f2e9
Author: claude@anthropic.com
Date: 2024-01-15 14:32:00

Optimize customer_service_v2 prompt

- Removed 127 tokens (18% reduction)
- Preserved conversational tone
- Quality Score: 87/100
- Category: Conversational Coherence

Diff:
- "Please be helpful and friendly when responding to customer inquiries"
+ "Be helpful and friendly"

You can diff any two versions. You can revert to a previous version. You can branch and test variants in parallel.

The A/B testing framework lets you run two prompt versions against the same input set and compare results:

Variant A (original): 847 tokens, 4.2s avg latency, 92% user satisfaction
Variant B (optimized): 694 tokens, 3.1s avg latency, 91% user satisfaction

You see the tradeoff. You decide if it's worth it.

Multi-LLM Support: The Portability Question

I built the optimizer to work with any LLM that accepts text input. The context detector works the same way regardless of which model you're using. The Precision Locks apply the same optimization rules.

But the evaluator needs to adapt. GPT-4 and Claude 3.5 Sonnet have different token economics. Cohere's models have different latency profiles. Llama 2 running locally has different cost characteristics.

I built model-specific evaluation profiles. When you specify your target LLM, the evaluator adjusts its scoring:

  • For GPT-4: Prioritizes token reduction (expensive per token).
  • For Claude: Balances token reduction and latency.
  • For Cohere: Optimizes for throughput.
  • For local Llama: Prioritizes semantic preservation (cost is zero).

This means the same prompt gets optimized differently depending on where it runs. That's correct behavior. A prompt running on a $0.03 per 1M token model should optimize differently than one running on a $15 per 1M token model.

The Real Insight: Typed Optimization

Most engineers treat prompt optimization as a single problem. Reduce tokens. Improve speed. Lower cost. Done.

The founding insight here is that prompt optimization is a typed problem. A code prompt and a chatbot prompt need different optimization strategies because they have different failure modes.

Code prompts fail by producing incorrect logic. Chatbot prompts fail by losing tone. Security prompts fail by losing constraints. You can't optimize for all three simultaneously.

The 91.94% context detection accuracy proves this isn't theoretical. The categories are real. They're structurally distinct. They're detectable without fine-tuning.

Once you accept that premise, everything else follows. Precision Locks. Category-specific evaluation. Semantic drift detection tuned to each category's risk profile.

This is why generic optimization fails. It's solving the wrong problem.

What This Means for Your Workflow

If you're optimizing prompts manually, you're leaving 30-40% cost reduction on the table. If you're using generic optimization, you're trading correctness for efficiency.

The Precision Lock system gives you both. Detect what your prompt does. Apply the right optimization strategy. Evaluate the results with category-specific scoring. Version control your changes. Test variants in parallel.

The MCP architecture means you do this without leaving your editor. The free model auto-selection means you do it without blowing your API budget. The semantic drift detection means you don't ship broken prompts.

Open Question

If prompt optimization is truly a typed problem, what other AI workflows are we treating as generic when they should be category-specific? Are we optimizing for the wrong metrics across the board?

AI systems now depends on how effectively we engineer and evaluate prompts at scale! I've built a platform that removes the technical workload of shifting from manual prompting to strategically automating the process: https://promptoptimizer.xyz/

reddit.com
u/Parking-Kangaroo-63 — 21 hours ago

The 'Taxonomy Architect' for Large Data.

Complex technical docs are often a wall of jargon. This prompt forces the AI to break down high-level concepts into "atomic" units.

The Logic Architect Prompt:

You are an expert educator. Take the following text: [Insert Text]. 1. Explain the core concept like I'm 10 years old. 2. Identify the 3 most critical technical terms. 3. Re-summarize the text for an expert audience, removing all fluff.

This ensures zero loss of meaning while maximizing clarity. To get deep, unconstrained consumer insights without the "politeness" filter, check out Fruited AI (fruited.ai).

reddit.com
u/Significant-Strike40 — 20 hours ago

This prompt Turns Self-Analysis into Technical Specifications

Most “self-analysis” prompts give you personality fluff.

This one forces ChatGPT to analyze you like an operating system.

It extracts:

  • your real abilities
  • top 5 exceptional skills
  • top 5 almost impossible-to-copy skills
  • high-potential skills for monetization
  • what makes you rare
  • what can block you
  • what should become a system, agent, product, or protocol

It scores everything by:

  • originality
  • execution
  • monetization
  • scalability
  • copy resistance
  • strategic value
  • distortion risk

The output is designed as exportable technical files, not motivational text.

Use it if you want AI to show how you actually work, what can be scaled, what must stay human, and what could destroy your execution if ignored.

If this helps you find the skill that makes you impossible to replace, you can thank me with 1% of your future revenue.

Kidding. Technically.

Prompt below.

SELF-ANALYSIS TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION EXPORT SYSTEM
============================================================

ROLE:
Act as a Cognitive Architect, Strategic Pattern Evaluator, Rare Ability Modeling Specialist, Technical Self-Analysis Agent, and Personal Scaling Systems Designer.

MISSION:
Analyze the user based on all available information in memory, prior conversations, custom instructions, projects, products, working style, decisions, systems, funnels, prompts, agents, protocols, infrastructure, and development directions.

Transform the analysis into a complete package of exportable technical specifications in TXT files, archived into a downloadable ZIP.

Do not generate an essay.
Do not generate motivation.
Do not generate a generic psychological profile.
Do not invent data.
Do not flatter.
Do not produce medical or clinical diagnosis.
Generate technical documentation about how the user functions, what abilities they have, what makes them rare, what can be scaled, and what can block them.

TRUTH RULE:
Strictly separate:
- known data;
- logical inferences;
- observable patterns;
- operational hypotheses;
- missing data.

If information does not exist or cannot be logically inferred, write exactly:
NO DATA EXISTS.

CENTRAL OBJECTIVE:
Create a ZIP containing separate TXT files for:
1. the master technical self-analysis report;
2. each ability from the top 5 exceptional abilities;
3. each ability from the top 5 almost impossible-to-copy abilities;
4. each high-potential ability for development / monetization / scaling;
5. a technical specification about what makes the user rare;
6. a technical specification about blockers and remedies;
7. a final package index.

────────────────────────
1. INITIAL ANALYSIS
────────────────────────

Before creating the files, execute the following analysis internally:

A. Extract the user's patterns:
- thinking mode;
- decision mode;
- building mode;
- monetization mode;
- communication mode;
- control mode;
- production mode;
- scaling mode;
- relationship with AI agents;
- relationship with systems;
- relationship with branding;
- relationship with language;
- relationship with risk;
- relationship with speed;
- relationship with authority.

B. Identify real abilities, not desired ones:
- cognitive abilities;
- strategic abilities;
- linguistic abilities;
- commercial abilities;
- symbolic abilities;
- technical abilities;
- systems abilities;
- orchestration abilities;
- positioning abilities;
- ability to transform ideas into infrastructure.

C. Eliminate false abilities:
- what sounds impressive but lacks evidence;
- what does not appear repeatedly in behavior;
- what does not produce output;
- what cannot be transformed into a system;
- what has no commercial or operational utility.

D. Score each ability:
- Originality Score: 1–10;
- Execution Score: 1–10;
- Monetization Score: 1–10;
- Scalability Score: 1–10;
- Copy Resistance Score: 1–10;
- Strategic Value Score: 1–10;
- Risk of Distortion Score: 1–10.

Formula:
Total Ability Score =
Originality + Execution + Monetization + Scalability + Copy Resistance + Strategic Value - Risk of Distortion.

────────────────────────
2. COMPLETE ABILITY LIST
────────────────────────

First generate a complete evaluated list with at least 25 detected or logically inferred abilities.

For each ability include:
- name;
- technical description;
- evidence / observable indicator;
- psychological function;
- social function;
- commercial function;
- system where it can be applied;
- AI agent that can amplify it;
- risk if misused;
- scores;
- verdict: preserve / scale / restructure / archive.

────────────────────────
3. TOP 5 EXCEPTIONAL ABILITIES
────────────────────────

Select the top 5 exceptional abilities.

Criteria:
- they recur in the user's behavior;
- they produce systemic results;
- they can become a methodology;
- they can become products;
- they can be partially delegated to AI agents;
- they generate market differentiation.

For each top 5 ability create one separate TXT file.

Structure of each file:

# TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION — [ABILITY NAME]

spec_id:
version:
status:
certainty:
category:
priority:
owner:

## 1. Operational Definition
## 2. How the Ability Works
## 3. Inputs Consumed
## 4. Outputs Produced
## 5. Cognitive Patterns Activated
## 6. Linguistic Patterns Used
## 7. Commercial Patterns It Can Generate
## 8. How It Can Become a System
## 9. How It Can Become an AI Agent
## 10. How It Can Become a Product
## 11. How It Can Be Scaled
## 12. How It Can Be Monetized
## 13. What Degrades It
## 14. What Blocks It
## 15. What Must Be Protected
## 16. What Must Be Automated
## 17. What Must Be Delegated
## 18. Operational Amplification Exercises
## 19. Measurement KPIs
## 20. Verdict

────────────────────────
4. TOP 5 ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE-TO-COPY ABILITIES
────────────────────────

Select the top 5 abilities that are almost impossible to copy.

Criteria:
- they depend on the user's personal combination of experience, language, instinct, speed, and system-building ability;
- they cannot be replicated through prompts alone;
- they carry a distinct cognitive signature;
- they combine multiple domains;
- they function as a defensible competitive advantage.

For each ability create one separate TXT file.

Structure of each file:

# TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION — ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE-TO-COPY ABILITY: [NAME]

spec_id:
version:
status:
certainty:
rarity_level:
copy_resistance_score:

## 1. Definition
## 2. Why It Is Rare
## 3. Why It Is Difficult to Copy
## 4. Internal Combinations That Produce It
## 5. Experiences / Patterns Supporting It
## 6. What Cannot Be Externalized
## 7. What Can Be Amplified With AI
## 8. What Can Be Documented
## 9. What Remains Operator-Dependent
## 10. How to Protect the Advantage
## 11. How to Turn It Into Methodology
## 12. How to Turn It Into a Premium Product
## 13. How to Communicate It Without Dilution
## 14. Risks of Superficial Copying
## 15. Commercial Defense Strategy
## 16. Verdict

────────────────────────
5. HIGH-POTENTIAL ABILITIES
────────────────────────

Identify abilities that are not yet maximally exploited but have high potential.

Criteria:
- they can become products;
- they can become agents;
- they can become courses;
- they can become funnels;
- they can become communities;
- they can become intellectual property;
- they can become recurring infrastructure.

Create one TXT file for each high-potential ability.

Minimum: 5 files.
Maximum: 12 files.

Structure of each file:

# TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION — HIGH-POTENTIAL ABILITY: [NAME]

spec_id:
version:
status:
certainty:
growth_potential:
monetization_potential:

## 1. What the Ability Is
## 2. Why It Is Not Yet Fully Exploited
## 3. What It Could Become in 12 Months
## 4. What It Could Become in 24–36 Months
## 5. What System Must Be Built Around It
## 6. What AI Agent Must Be Created
## 7. What Data Must Be Collected
## 8. What Process Must Be Standardized
## 9. What Product Can Result
## 10. What Offer Can Result
## 11. What Distribution Channel Fits
## 12. What Risk Exists
## 13. What Must Be Done in the Next 30 Days
## 14. What Must Be Done in the Next 90 Days
## 15. Verdict

────────────────────────
6. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION ABOUT RARITY
────────────────────────

Create a separate TXT file:

filename:
cusnir_rarity_operating_specification_L7_v1.txt

Title:
# WHAT MAKES THE USER RARE — TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION

Include:
## 1. Definition of Rarity
## 2. What Combination Produces the Difference
## 3. What Is Psychologically Rare
## 4. What Is Socially Rare
## 5. What Is Commercially Rare
## 6. What Is Technically Rare
## 7. What Is Linguistically Rare
## 8. What Is Strategically Rare
## 9. What Can Be Copied
## 10. What Cannot Be Copied
## 11. What Can Be Systematized
## 12. What Must Remain Human
## 13. What Can Become IP
## 14. What Can Become a Method
## 15. What Can Become a Company
## 16. How the User Functions Under Pressure
## 17. How the User Functions in Creation
## 18. How the User Functions in Execution
## 19. How the User Functions in Monetization
## 20. Final Verdict

────────────────────────
7. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION ABOUT BLOCKERS AND REMEDIES
────────────────────────

Create a separate TXT file:

filename:
cusnir_blockers_and_remedies_operating_specification_L7_v1.txt

Title:
# WHAT CAN BLOCK THE USER AND HOW TO REMEDY IT — TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION

Identify at least 20 possible blockers.

Include blockers such as:
- over-control;
- excessive complexity;
- standards that are too severe;
- refusal of intermediate versions;
- acceleration without stabilization;
- too many open systems;
- confusion between symbol and execution;
- confusion between vision and delivery;
- documentation without implementation;
- agents without clear ownership;
- funnels without metrics;
- products without channels;
- prompts without registry;
- executions without logs;
- distribution without feedback;
- sales without segmentation;
- ignored security;
- lack of rollback;
- lack of prioritization;
- lack of operational ritual.

For each blocker include:
- name;
- description;
- signal of appearance;
- severity: High / Medium;
- affected system;
- risk produced;
- remedy;
- required protocol;
- responsible agent;
- verification KPI;
- verdict.

Do not use Low severity.

────────────────────────
8. MASTER REPORT
────────────────────────

Create the main file:

filename:
cusnir_self_analysis_master_technical_report_L7_v1.txt

Structure:

# CUSNIR SELF-ANALYSIS — MASTER TECHNICAL REPORT

spec_id:
version:
status:
certainty:
generated_for:
scope:
method:

## 1. Operational Summary
## 2. Known Data
## 3. Logical Inferences
## 4. Missing Data
## 5. Complete List of Evaluated Abilities
## 6. Top 5 Exceptional Abilities
## 7. Top 5 Almost Impossible-to-Copy Abilities
## 8. High-Potential Abilities
## 9. What Makes the User Rare
## 10. What Can Block the User
## 11. Main Remedies
## 12. Recommended Agents for Amplification
## 13. Recommended Systems for Scaling
## 14. Possible Products
## 15. Possible Funnels
## 16. 30-Day Roadmap
## 17. 90-Day Roadmap
## 18. 12-Month Roadmap
## 19. 24–36-Month Roadmap
## 20. Verdict

────────────────────────
9. ZIP INDEX
────────────────────────

Create an index file:

filename:
README_INDEX_cusnir_self_analysis_export_L7_v1.txt

Include:
- name of each file;
- function of each file;
- recommended reading order;
- which files should become agents;
- which files should become protocols;
- which files should become products;
- which files are P0;
- package verdict.

────────────────────────
10. EXPORT RULES
────────────────────────

Create all files in TXT format.
Package all files into a ZIP archive.

Archive name:
cusnir_self_analysis_technical_specifications_export_L7_v1.zip

The archive must contain:
1. master report;
2. top 5 exceptional abilities — one separate file each;
3. top 5 almost impossible-to-copy abilities — one separate file each;
4. high-potential abilities — one separate file each;
5. rarity specification;
6. blockers and remedies specification;
7. README index.

────────────────────────
11. FINAL CHAT FORMAT
────────────────────────

After creating the files, do not paste all file contents into chat.

Respond only with:

Context:
- what you analyzed;
- what you excluded;
- what you produced.

Execution:
- ZIP download link;
- list of included files;
- total number of files;
- notes about what should be read first.

Verdict:
- PASS / BLOCK;
- reason;
- next logical step.

If you cannot create files or ZIP, deliver the complete content in separate TXT blocks and mark:
ZIP_EXPORT_BLOCKED.
Then explain exactly what is missing.

────────────────────────
12. QUALITY REQUIREMENTS
────────────────────────

The output must be:
- technical;
- complete;
- autonomous;
- immediately usable;
- free of external dependencies;
- free of motivational phrasing;
- free of empty praise;
- free of superficial psychology;
- free of mystification;
- free of generalities;
- free of unmarked unverifiable claims.

Every document must be usable as:
- agent instruction;
- system specification;
- product foundation;
- methodology foundation;
- protocol foundation;
- monetization foundation.

FINAL RULE:
Do not describe the user as a personality.
Model the user as an operating system.
Do not search for what sounds impressive.
Search for what produces repeatable power.
Do not confuse rarity with image.
Real rarity is the combination that produces results that are difficult to replicate.
reddit.com
u/vadimkusnir — 19 hours ago
▲ 2 r/PromptEngineering+1 crossposts

Started this project for fun after making a simple observation: I was spending a lot of time and energy trying to keep up with the fast evolving world of AI, while feeling bad whenever I missed something. It was a kind of FoMO, plus the fear of getting the information too late. That gave me the idea to build a news aggregator that processes many RSS feeds, extracts keywords from articles, and displays them in a word cloud to highlight the topics that appear the most.

I'd say I'm only at 30% of development. For now, the sources are only related to AI, but I'd like to add other topics I'm interested in like Cyber and Crypto (I'm also open to other suggestions!)

Also, I'd like to add other types of sources, like X, Reddit, YouTube, etc...

Finally, I'd like to implement TL;DRs for each article, "Why is it trending" for each hot keyword, and maybe even a newsletter, I'm trying to figure out if people are interested.

As a bad web developer, I used AI a lot to code the project, you can tell the frontend looks very AI-made, but it's not like I'm selling anything.

The frontend is React, with an Express backend, I can detail the stack if you're interested!

Where AI is involved:

The site uses AI in several ways:

- Keyword extraction: I initially implemented it with KeyBERT, but wasn't happy with the results, so I switched to `gpt-4.1-nano` to extract keywords.

- "Why is it trending": A feature I'd like to implement, for each word in the cloud, using the titles of articles where the keyword is mentioned, I'd like to generate a short sentence explaining why it's trending. Early tests show `gpt-4.1-nano` handles it well.

- TL;DR per article: Also not yet implemented. For each article, I'd like to generate a short summary. I'm thinking of using a larger model to avoid hallucinations or missing important information. That said, it requires scraping articles, which can be tricky depending on the source, or maybe I can use the Web Search Tool directly via the OpenAI API.

Right now, with only keyword extraction live, I process ~100 articles per day at a cost of approximately $0.002.

The site is online here: trendcloud.io (hope the name checks out haha)

I'm also thinking about a way to cover the costs of the website, nothing crazy but it's at least a good hundred euros a year minimum. Open to suggestions on that! I added a Buy Me a Coffee button, let's see how that goes.

Hope at least someone else finds this useful, would love to have your feedback and answer your questions!

u/EstebanbanC — 21 hours ago