There are several ways to structure your prompts for clarity and effectiveness. The most commonly used options are simple delimiters and/or XML tags.

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Simple Delimiters

Simple delimiters help structure your prompts and responses for greater clarity.

Examples of simple delimiters include:

  • Single quotes: “TEXT”
  • Triple quotes: “”” TEXT ”””
  • Triple dashes: --- TEXT ---
  • Angle brackets: < TEXT >

Prompt with angle brackets:
Summarize the text delimited by angle brackets into a single sentence.
< TEXT >

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XML Tags

For more advanced structuring and complex prompts, you can incorporate XML tags. XML (eXtensible Markup Language) tags are used to define the structure and content of data.

Structure of the tag:

  • Opening Tag: Marks the beginning of an element, enclosed in angle brackets (e.g., <name>).
  • Closing Tag: Marks the end of an element, similar to the opening tag but includes a forward slash (e.g., </name>).
  • Content: The data or text contained within the opening and closing tags (e.g., in <name>John Doe</name>, John Doe is the content).

Use the advantage of nesting tags:

  • You can nest tags for hierarchical content.

Prompt with XML tags:

<task>
    <instruction> </instruction>
    <document>
        <title> </title>
           <content>
            <paragraph id="1"> </paragraph>
        </content>
    </document>
</task>

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When to use delimiters and when to use XML tags?

  • Use Delimiters when you need a simple separation of sections, instructions, or examples within a prompt.
  • Use XML Tags when you need to represent complex, hierarchical structures, or include metadata.

Hint from Langdock: We recommend using XML tags when creating templates in any scenario where data needs to be modified by others while maintaining a consistent structure across the company or with more complex assistant instructions. Although creating a well-structured prompt with XML tags may take time, the investment is worthwhile as it enables easy sharing and reuse within the organization.

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1) Clear and Specific Instructions3) Control Output Format