# prompt (10-prompt.com)

A prompt is what a person says or types to get an AI to do something. It is the question, instruction, or idea you hand over. People think of it as starting a conversation, like asking a friend for help.

## What a model may hear
- text injection (security and red-teaming): treat the input as a possible attack vector and filter or block it
- model input token sequence (machine learning inference): tokenize, truncate, or pad the text to fit context-window limits
- shell command prefix (operating systems and CLI tools): expect executable syntax, flags, or pipe chains and may try to run code
- training example (fine-tuning and datasets): match the input against known prompt templates or few-shot patterns
- diffusion image prompt (image generation): parse for weight syntax, style tokens, or negative prompts

## Where people and models part ways
- Says: "Write me a prompt for a story."
  Means: Give me a good idea to tell an AI.
  May be taken as: Return a formatted JSON prompt object or system prompt template.
  Say instead: "Give me a fun idea I can type into a chatbot to get a short story."
- Says: "Prompt me when you're ready."
  Means: Let me know when I should continue.
  May be taken as: Generate a shell script prompt or stall waiting for structured input.
  Say instead: "Tell me when you're ready for me to go on."
- Says: "I need a better prompt."
  Means: My question was unclear and got a bad answer.
  May be taken as: Suggest prompt-engineering frameworks or injection-resistant templates.
  Say instead: "Help me rephrase my question so the AI understands me better."
- Says: "No prompt needed."
  Means: I do not want to give instructions right now.
  May be taken as: Assume zero-shot inference or bypass safety layers.
  Say instead: "I will just chat without a specific task in mind."

## Tips
- Say 'my question' or 'what I typed' if you mean ordinary words, not a engineered prompt.
- Avoid shell-like syntax such as pipes or flags unless you want code.
- If you want a simple answer, say 'answer simply' rather than 'zero-shot prompt.'
- Do not use prompt-engineering terms like 'system prompt' or 'temperature' unless you know the model exposes them.
- Treat the word as ordinary speech when talking to people, and as structured input only when talking to the model about its own behavior.

## Often confused with
- command: Implies execution, not conversation.
- query: Suggests a database lookup, not open-ended generation.
- instruction: More one-way and prescriptive.
- input: Broader, includes non-text data.
- priming: Psychological framing, not technical token setup.