Your Prompt Is Probably Too Long

There is a good chance your prompt is too long for what it is trying to do.

This usually happens for a simple reason. Adding is easy. We often think of one more reminder, edge case, example, and it all feels useful. So the prompt grows and it keeps growing because every added line can be justified on its own.

Removing is harder. Saying the same thing with less takes more effort. It forces you to decide what actually matters and what is just there because it feels safer.

The mistake is assuming that longer means better. A model only has so much attention to distribute. Give it twenty things to follow and each thing gets less weight. Give it three important things and attention clusters around those three.

Shorter prompts are not automatically better, but tighter prompts often are. Less noise. More signal. Via negativa is valid here. Instead of asking what else should go in the prompt, ask what can be removed and let the system handle it.

If you cannot make the prompt shorter, you probably do not understand it well enough yet. That's ok and it is a sign that you are still in the early stages of working with the system. But as you learn, try to distill the prompt down to its essence. You will likely find that much of what you thought was necessary was actually just noise.